Mat Maslan Otak Tang Lutut : Pusat Bandar Jengka Is Dead, Naza showroom half empty, Berita Publishing shutting down - semua sebab GST.

Yesterday I visited the Naza Car Showroom along the Federal Highway.  More on that soon.

This morning some friends and I were in Jengka in Pahang - the ground zero of the Felda Settlements. We spoke to some peneroka folks as well as the people who run businesses in the Pusat Bandar Jengka. Pusat Bandar Jengka is the "capital" of the Jengka Triangle.

Ever since the GST in April, business at the Pusat Bandar Jengka has died.  One business owner pointed to the empty street where no people were walking or shopping. 

'This is the peak hour (12 - 1 pm), come back in the evening, it will be even more empty'they said.

You can see this picture I took this morning at Pusat Bandar Jengka.  The place is empty.

They said that since April, their suppliers had only come twice to their shop. All over the country sales have dropped and the suppliers do not have enough business to justify travelling all the way to Jengka.  

All the people there are peneroka or children of peneroka.  They are very upset with the gomen. One lady said, 'Tukar saja calon tu'. Meaning change the Super Moron.

Tomorrow the "cash is king" super moron is scheduled to visit a place called Pasong further south of Jengka and declare 'duit raya' for all the Felda settlers. Treating the settlers like beggars. 

The same lady said quite indignantly, 'ambil saja duit tu.'  It was their money in the first place.

The indignant lady recalled with much bitterness that just after the GST was introduced, an old man whom she knew who used to shop regularly at the local supermarket placed his usual monthly purchases at the checkout counter. To his  shock this time he did not have enough money to pay for the purchases. So the cashier girl had to help him remove the barang one by one until the total tallied with the money in his pocket.  She seemed to feel the old man's embarrassment.  The people are cursing Super Moron and his moron team.

Has anyone from PMO, Pemandu, the prepaid bloggers, the consultants etc driven through Jengka, Bandar Muadzzam, Kg Kelibang, Felda Piol lately? They are located in a state called Pahang. Its less than two hours drive along the Karak and the East Coast Hiway. Lovely durians in season too. Go ahead - take a drive. You can ask them, 'pernah tak seorang mamak datang sini, tanya pasal GST, pasal PM, tanya pasal harga sawit...?'

 

I asked another guy who has more than five children (I wont say how many), and works in the Felda palm oil mill if 'orang di sini suka tak kalau jumpa PM' and he laughed 'wallahu a'lam' (only Allah knows). It was not a happy laugh.

He said that before the GST, his monthly expenditure was about RM500. Now he has to pay more than RM600 to buy the same things he used to buy before. A reduction in purchasing capacity of about 25%. 

Folks, of the 54 or so Felda seats that sustain UMNO, I think UMNO may lose half of them. The Felda fixed deposit has gone out the window. I believe the entire Pusat Bandar Jengka has just lost faith in Super Moron. Giving them 'duit raya' or BR1M is not going to turn things around. Its too late.  Hello Mat Maslan, masih ingat ke cara potong getah?  

Yesterday I went to the Naza car showroom along the Federal Highway. This is the peak season - Hari Raya is on the way but the showroom was more than half empty.   One salesman guy said they used to have 700 cars on display here, but now there are less than 200 cars.

He gave some story about the Japanese prices having gone up. I think it is the Ringgit sudah jatuh factor plus the GST. Both are having a combined  killer effect on Naza as well.

The medium end cars for the middle classes in the RM200+k range have really decreased.  They still have plenty of Ferraris, some Porsches, a Lamborghini, Koenigsegg (??) etc. The super high end cars are plenty. 

The media has reported that while sales of most cars have declined, sales of high end cars have increased (22%??)  This shows that there are still people who make illegal money, corruption money, crony money etc. (I know its not all but way, way too many). 

The point is a half empty car showroom is not a very good thing for anyone.

Finally Berita Publishing is exiting the magazine business. I dont know how many of you are aware but since January last year (2014) I have been writing a column in the Malaysian Business magazine. My column was called 'Relevances'. I was also an Advisor to the Berita Publishing group.

Here is the story about Berita Publishing:

http://www.themalaymailonline.com/malaysia/article/citing-gst-as-killer-pioneer-magazine-publisher-exits-business

Citing GST as ‘killer’, pioneer magazine publisher exits business
Thursday July 2, 2015

KUALA LUMPUR, July 2 ― One of the country’s oldest publishing houses has announced its plans to quit its magazine production due to financial losses just three months after the introduction of the controversial Goods and Services Tax on April 1.
 

Berita Publishing Sdn Bhd chief executive, Juhaidi Yean Abdullah saying vendors have been sending back the company’s magazines on a mass scale since April ― of the 30,000 magazine copies published, 28,000 copies were returned.

“Three main factors that caused the company to stop publishing magazines are tough competition, coupled with dwindling advertising returns, difficulties to maintain staffs and the killer being GST,” Yean was quoted 

Juhaidi said that the GST required the company’s vendors to upgrade their cash registers by October.

However, he said many did not sell the magazines as there were a number who did not change their cash systems to be in tandem with the new consumption tax.

“Our buyers were not satisfied when the amount they paid did not tally with the amount shown in the receipts issued while the shopkeepers, fearing action would be taken against them, resorted to the easy way by placing the magazines on a lower racks and not on display to attract attention,” Yean was quoted saying.

He said that the company has had to slash its workforce by half due to cost, adding that some workers with over 40 years’ experience had to be retrenched leaving only some 10 per cent to run the business.

Berita Publishing, founded in 1973, is the face behind popular women’s magazines such as Jelita, Anjung Seri, Madam Chair and various others, including  a myriad of cookbooks.

It reportedly ended its publishing business on Tuesday.

Since GST rolled out, many traders nationwide remain unclear over the implementation, especially small traders or family-run businesses, as they would need to include technology into their businesses and sell their products with an additional 6 per cent.

The complexity and costs of the new six per cent consumption tax has also prompted several small businesses — some decades old — to close shop than attempt to grapple with the GST.

- See more at: http://www.themalaymailonline.com/malaysia/article/citing-gst-as-killer-pioneer-magazine-publisher-exits-business#sthash.U7BCiXpn.dpuf

So you see Mat Maslan, otak tang lutut, the GST is putting the final nail for many businesses, including bumiputra owned businesses. 

The businesses in the Pusat Bandar Jengka, Naza car showroom and even Berita Publishing have been very badly hit by the GST. These are all bumiputra companies.

The country's economy is grinding to a halt. Please abolish the GST.