CEP never produced a report, says Jomo

 

Jomo Kwame Sundaram said he had pushed for reforms but to no avail and suggestions on GST were ignored.

PETALING JAYA: The Council of Eminent Persons formed in 2018 never produced a report, economist Jomo Kwame Sundaram said today.

“There is no such report, we never collaborated on such a report,” he said at a talk organised by the Oxford and Cambridge Society of Malaysia.

He said the council, formed by the government of Dr Mahathir Mohamad, was given 100 days.

“A report was prepared by the secretariat under former finance minister Daim Zainuddin. But there was no report on the entire CEP,” he said.

The CEP was formed immediately after Pakatan Harapan came to power in the 2018 general election. Besides Jomo and Daim, the other members were former Bank Negara governor Zeti Akhtar Aziz, former Petronas president and chief executive officer Hassan Marican and corporate tycoon Robert Kuok.

Reforms ignored

Jomo also said that during his time in the CEP, he had tried to push for reforms, especially on the goods and services tax (GST).

“Instead of abolishing GST, I suggested an integrated tax authority, rather than a segmented one. The head of customs was very open to these suggested reforms.

“Unfortunately, the (finance) minister at that time and perhaps the prime minister never considered these reforms, to my knowledge. And so, there were no discussions on this,” he said.

On healthcare

Jomo said he had also pushed for reforms to improve health financing but he did not see any commitment to increase funds for healthcare by the leadership.

“I was heartened last year when the health minister then, Khairy Jamaluddin, wanted to increase government spending on health to 5%, instead of PH’s promised 4%.

“As we know nothing happened. It was not reflected in the budget before Parliament was dissolved last November,” he said.

EPF made a political football

Asked about the clamour by certain groups for targeted withdrawals from the Employees’ Provident Fund, Jomo said EPF has become a political football.

“The Umno leadership and others have basically been pushing very hard for some years now, to allow people to take out as much money as possible from EPF.

“I feel that old people would have very little choice but to continue to work as long as they can (if their EPF savings are depleted).

“It may not necessarily be a bad thing for us to have a longer working life, but considering the poor health that everyone appears to be in, I am really concerned,” he added. - FMT