BN prime ministers will suck the people dry

WHY do you think the Inland Revenue Department (IRD) became super efficient after Mahathir Mohamad stepped down as prime minister in October 2003?

Because the national treasury was empty and income tax was a main source of income to keep the government afloat. It was then incoming prime minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi who confided in me that Mahathir had left him with an empty federal treasury.

Of course there was also Petronas and plenty of borrowings to keep Abdullah’s administration going.

Unfortunately for Malaysians, the man who was once regarded by the rakyat as “Mr Clean”, extended Mahathir’s excessiveness in milking the country’s wealth dry.

Abdullah relied heavily on internal and external borrowings to finance mega projects but did nothing to reduce the ballooning federal debts until his downfall in 2009 following the March 2008 political tsunami.

Abdullah’s successor, Najib Abdul Razak, not only extended the government’s borrowings, he and his wife Rosmah went on a spending spree, resulting in accumulating more than RM520 billion in federal debts.

NRD used to do 'national service' for BN

Umno prime ministers, like Abdullah and Najib, are all the same.

They have no intention whatsoever to help the rakyat or country. They just use their power to enrich themselves and their cronies with billion-ringgit projects and monopolies.

Since the national treasury was empty, the NRD was then beefed up to do national service for Barisan Nasional (BN).

In 2010, Najib’s NRD collected RM85 billion in taxes followed with another RM125 billion in 2011.

BN prime ministers will always continue to squeeze the rakyat until their “blood runs dry”.

It is estimated that if BN is not stopped from their wayward ways, the federal debt will hit RM1 trillion by 2020.

Should the people give their mandate to Pakatan Rakyat (PR) to govern after the coming 13th General Election (GE13), we should be able to heal the country’s financial standing over time and also launch people-centric fiscal policies to help ease the rakyat’s financial burden.

We can surely do this with the tens of billions of ringgit in savings from the BN government’s leakages, corruption and inefficiency.

Just give us one term to prove our worth. The next general election is the only chance for change in this century for Malaysians.

People's Hope

We have revealed our action plans for the rakyat and Malaysia in our election manifesto.

Some of the key measures to help ease the rakyat’s financial woes are:

> YEARLY automatic RM1,000 deposits into the accounts of Malaysians aged 60 and above;

> THE scrapping of the Automated Enforcement System (AES) which BN cronies aimed to collect some RM20 billion in speeding compound fines from 832 cameras nationwide. BN has temporarily suspended the AES due to GE13;

> THERE will be no 1Care as proposed by the BN federal government represented by Health Minister Liow Tiong Lai. 1Care makes it mandatory for all Malaysians to contribute 10% of their salary, just like EPF deductions, for health insurance. No insurance, no health service or admissions to hospitals. Guess who benefits from the billions of ringgit in collections? Of course BN cronies. PR will ensure healthcare is free to the rakyat.

> Toll collections will be scrapped in stages;

> The retail price of fuel will be lowered to reduce the cost of transportation thereby causing a domino effect in lowering the price of goods and services;

> Education will not only be free for all from primary to tertiary levels, all schools will receive yearly allocations at RM300 per pupil;

> Electricity tariffs will be reduced by removing the RM25 billion subsidy for the rich crony Independent Power Producers (IPPs) who sell their electricity to Tenaga Nasional (TNB) at high rates; and

> Taxi permits will be given to all individual cabbies and permits for crony corporates will be revoked.

The 4 generals

At PR’s recent national convention in Shah Alam, four retired military generals, two from the army and one each from the navy and air force, have revealed that high procurements without tender had cost the government some RM75 billion.

That includes submarines that can’t dive and jets that did not have engines.

According to the generals, Special Branch (police) and military intelligence, PR is expected to upset BN and create electoral history in GE13.

They also opined that there would not be any unrest should PR win GE13 because the Armed Forces will be with the rakyat.