Umno's Puad says with GST, 17k political appointees' jobs could be saved

Umno supreme council member Mohd Puad Zarkashi said the slashing of 17,000 political appointees could have been avoided if the Pakatan Harapan did not do away with the GST.

“Why did this (the lay-offs) happen? Surely they will be very sad to lose their jobs at a time when Muslims will be observing syawal soon.

“This has to do with abolishing GST. Harapan needs to keep its promise to abolish GST, and when that happens, the government would lose RM42 billion in revenue (from the consumption tax).

“Therefore the government must take measures to save money.

"Thus the 17,000 contract workers have become the first victims (of GST's abolition),” claimed Puad in a statement today.

The Harapan government has confirmed it will remove the highly controversial GST and replace it with the sales and services tax (SST) as promised during the 14th general election.

As an interim measure, the GST has been reduced to zero to ease the tax burden on consumers.

Harapan said it is confident of making up for the GST shortfall by cutting the previous BN government's wastage and by several other measures.

This week, Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad said the government presently had an excess of contract workers, including 17,000 appointed for political reasons, an area that the government could cut corners on.

"We have too many contract officers, of whom some recruited as they were needed for administrative (works), while others given a contract due to political (reasons), they are the political appointees," he said.

Mahathir however assured lower-paid staff would not be affected by the cuts.

Puad meanwhile called the cuts “cruel,” and said Cuepacs and the Malaysian Trades Union Congress cannot remain silent. -Mkini