THIS IS TOO MUCH! Putrajaya says 'NO' to exempting MEDICINES from GST

Health Minister S Subramaniam has turned down the proposal by the Malaysian Pharmaceutical Society (MPS) to categorise all medicines as zero-rated items under the goods and services tax (GST).

“100 percent? No,” said Subramaniam in a press conference today.

However, the minister said that this was not a long-term policy for the government and the zero-rated items list can be revised in the future if necessary.

“GST is a very dynamic thing, it can be changed from time to time,” he explained.

MPS is collecting signatures for a petition to appeal to the government for all medicines to be zero-rated under the GST.

Its president Nancy Ho said in a statement on Tuesday that the government should not tax somebody for “being sick or for needing to take medicines”.

However, Subramaniam said: “Malaysians want everything to be zero-rated. If you can do that, there is no need to have GST at all.”

According to him, the government had identified the essential drugs by approving 320 chemical compounds as zero-rated items under the GST, which translated into about 4,200 brands of medicine.

He added that the government was also trying to get the basic medical equipment, which is used to manage the patients and treatment, to be listed as zero-rated items.

“This is for the beginning, but for those drugs which are not in the essential drug list, they will be bound o be placed under GST. Let it start off and we will see how it goes,” he said.

Regarding the issue of medicine stock thievery incident at Kuala Lumpur Hospital (HKL) as revealed by the latest Auditor-General’s Report 2013, Subramaniam said that the staff member who is allegedly responsible for the loss has resigned.

“The officer who was detected by the CCTV (of HKL) has resigned. It is just one guy, who has identified by HKL’s CCTV.

“So he has resigned but we had made a report to the police, so the police are investigating it. After the investigation, they can take criminal action against the person if they have enough evidence,” he added.

Subramaniam said that he had asked the hospital’s director to enhance the security measures in its compound, in terms of handling the movement of the equipment, to prevent similar criminal action from happening again.

The latest Auditor-General's Report revealed that medicine stocks worth RM1.21 million were stolen from Kuala Lumpur Hospital. -M'kini