The greatest car robbery in Malaysia

Minister in the Prime Minister’s office, Tan Sri Nor Mohamed has owned up that the car pricing in Malaysia indeed is the greatest car-robbery story.

His admission (Malaysia Chronicle, Sunday 29 July) that the revenue of RM7 billion netted from the excise duty imposed on cars will be lost if Opposition parties abolish the excessive duties is a revelation that will irk the citizens even more having suffered for decades with ridiculously over-priced vehicles.

On closer reflection, where is the BN government netting such a whopping sum of money from? From the pockets of its own citizens mate!

How much far better off would the Alis, Samys and Ah Kows be if they did not have to be burdened with the RM7 billion that they have to squeeze from their toiled merger incomes? Does the minister not sense this logic?

And mind you the argument he dishes out is a veiled threat that second-hand car dealers would go bust and many turned jobless. Now, Yang Amat Berhormat who put them in such a vulnerable state in the first place?

He threatens of bankruptcy. Hello Joe, even without the abolishing of the rob-from-Peter-to-enrich-Paul taxes, we already have thousands of Malaysians axed with bankruptcy every year.

Further, if the robbed money from the citizens is used to pay for the rural development, then who is going to rob from where to pay for the urban folks who are seeing nightmares every day making ends meet?

Price of the crime must be paid in full

In fact, your very BN government leaders who have started giving ‘ang-pow’ handouts to citizens under the pretext of caring for the financially strapped is also an admission that even without the scarping of excise duties the citizens are already caving in under the pressures of national financial mismanagement.

And what kind of financial / economic management is it that BN is practicing by squeezing RM7 billion from its citizens to bring seeming development to rural sectors?

In the first place, do we all not buy cars simply because the public transport system is a total failure after five decades of BN rule?

Then of course there was another head in BN who argued that Proton will shut down and all the bumiputra workers will be begging on the street if the duties were done away with.

Again, that argument is also consistent with the line of thought with Nor Mohamed. It is also about robbing from the citizens to upkeep the un-productive, non-competitive Proton operations. Is it not?

Enough. The victims of Malaysia’s greatest car robbery scam are decisive. No amount of billowing threats is going to change the truth. The greatest robbery must be ended and the price of the crime paid in full. That too will eventually take care of the second-hand car dealers.

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