Petrol price: Malaysians complain more than Arabs, says PM Najib

Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak said today that Saudi Arabians do not complain about the rising cost of petrol in their country as much as Malaysians do here.

“The price of petrol is going up. Ours went up three sen and you have people complaining.

“There (in Saudi Arabia) petrol price went up 126 percent overnight. They complain, but not like us,” Najib said in his speech at the Police Retirees Assembly at the Putra World Trade Centre (PWTC) in Kuala Lumpur today.

He claimed Saudi Arabia emulated Malaysia in implementing the GST and noted that Malaysians who travelled to Saudi Arabia do not complain about having to pay GST there.

“They complain in Malaysia only,” said Najib, who was in Saudi Arabia last week on a working visit.

The prime minister said the GST was meant to redistribute income in Malaysia.

The rich tend to spend more money and thus pay more in GST to the government, which will then redistribute the amount collected to the bottom 40 percent (B40) household income group, he explained.

However, Najib pointed out, the results of this plan would not be instantaneous.

“Not everything you want today, you will get. There is no such thing as instant gratification,” he said.

The prime minister had previously said the government's revenue was now channelled to the B40 household income group, which needed more programmes like the 1Malaysia People's Aid Scheme (BR1M) to reduce cost of living; school aid; assistance to padi farmers and fisherfolk, as well as special aid to low-income civil servants.

Najib said that targeted aid programmes would not be possible if the higher income earners did not contribute a larger amount of tax.

"This means that even though the low-income group also pays the six percent GST, the benefits that they receive from the implementation (of the tax) are actually many times higher than the high-income group," he said.

He also stressed that the economic situation of the people had already taken into account before the GST was implemented and that the current government would continue to ensure the best quality of life for all Malaysians.

The GST was implemented in 2015 and it contributed RM41 billion to the national coffers in 2016.- Mkini