RM12BIL FOR NAJIB’S OFFICE – IF THIS IS NOT KLEPTOCRACY, WHAT IS? WONG CHEN SLAMS ‘BIZARRE’ BUDGET 2018

KUALA LUMPUR – PKR’s Wong Chen today described Budget 2018 as “bizarre”, specifically the RM12 billion allocated for development in the Prime Minister’s Department (PMD) for next year.

“The health ministry only got RM1.8 billion for development purposes under the budget, and education only got RM1.4 billion.

“What is the prime minister spending RM12 billion on?

“The total allocated for the prime minister’s department, including for operating and development expenses, is RM18 billion.”

Last year, RM15.94 billion was allocated to this department.

Prime Minister Najib Razak delivered Budget 2018 at the Dewan Rakyat this afternoon.

Wong Chen, who is Kelana Jaya MP, said the budget was also bizarre because the income tax rate had been reduced and more items exempted from the 6% goods and services tax (GST).

“Yet, he is expecting higher tax revenue in 2018.

“They are projecting GST collection to hit RM44 billion (in 2018). That is an additional RM2.3 billion compared with 2017.

“What this effectively means is that every Malaysian household will have to pay more in GST next year,” he said.

The MP said if the GST revenue were to hit an all-time high of RM44 billion, it would likely mean that households would have to fork out another RM330 each in GST next year.

Under Budget 2018, Najib has proposed that all services provided by local authorities be exempted from GST from April 1, 2018 or Oct 1, 2018 onwards, depending on the local authority’s own discretion.

Najib also proposed all reading materials be treated as a zero-rated GST item from Jan 1.

Wong Chen pointed out that the budget was RM21 billion more than last year’s RM282 billion, and added, “Yet Najib has announced he will magically reduce the deficit from 3% in 2017 to 2.8% for 2018.

“How is he going to do this?”

He said the answer to that question was simple — to tax the people more. He also said it looked like the government was going to collect an additional RM20 billion in taxes from the people and from companies to pay for Budget 2018.

– FMT