A team of Pakatan Rakyat MPs are busy putting together a strategic budget which will focus on a "sustainable and not reckless" national expenditure.
PETALING JAYA: Pakatan Rakyat is busy preparing a strategic budget for 2012 and is hopeful of revealing its details before Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak reveal’s the nation’s expenditure plan in October this year.
Disclosing this today PAS MP Dzulkifli Ahmad said the Pakatan budget will focuses on specific areas and objectives.
This will be the coalition’s second strategic budget, the first was done in 2008.
“When the Prime Minister announced the budget (last year) it had focused on big projects and big businesses.
“That was the take home message but this will drag the nation into a deficit economy if such expenditure is not curbed.
“We will take a strategic approach, where all the sectoral parameters are to be addressed.
“We will define what our objectives are and move backwards on how to allocate funds to various sectors to avoid the mistakes of the BN in the last budget,” said Dzulkifli adding that the strategic budget was themed “Prosperity for All” (Kesejahteraan Untuk Semua).
He said with this in mind, the budget will focus on a more “decent and sustainable growth” whereby top consideration was given to “means to increase disposable income”, “redistributive justice” and a “sustainable and not reckless’ national expenditure.
‘We welcome plagiarism’
He added that the strategic budget also plans to look into addressing the problems of 60% of households earning less than RM1500 a month.
He said that further details and progress of the budget will be announced on consecutive Fridays for the next “five to six” weeks following the working committee’s meeting.
The working group tasked with completing the strategic budget comprises two representative each from the DAP, PKR and PAS.
The committee will also be made up of industry experts, academics and cooperate figures.
The MPs in the comittee are PKR’s Tian Chua (Batu) and Nurul Izzah Anwar(Lembah Pantai), DAP’s Liew Chin Tong (Bukit Bendera) and Tony Puah (Petaling Jaya Utara) and PAS’ Dzulkifli Ahmad (Kuala Selangor) and Rosli Yaakop (PAS Negri Sembilan Deputy Commissioner).
The group had their first meeting today.
Tian Chua joked that the coalition’s strategic report will be released before Najib announces theirs, so that the ‘government can copy the report’.
“We welcome plagiarism”, he quipped.
Biometric system
On a another matter, Tian Chua raised concern over the implementation of the Election Commission’s biometric voting system in the coming parliamentary election.
Many parties have already voiced their grouses that such a system may not guarantee free and fair elections.
Tian Chua said the government should heed public concern over the implementation of the biometric voting system.
He said the ongoing registration of illegal voters through the biometric system had shown up glitches which did not ‘inspire much confidence’.
“It will complicate the problem even more than bringing about solution.
“The system does not guarantee (stop) a person from voting multiple times.
“The indelible ink is the best solution where it does not cause confusion,” he said.
Nurul Izzah, who was also at the press conference, urged the EC to make clear to whom the biometric contracts are being awarded.
“The EC must reveal who the contractors are and make clear the audit process of the coding system.
“It (EC) needs to prove that the system is safe from hackers,” she said.
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.