Pakatan says GST and HSR to be scrapped under its budget

By Malaysiakini

Rafizi Ramli

The Goods and Services Tax (GST) will not be necessary at all if the country’s finances are properly managed, Pandan MP Rafizi Ramli said today.

Speaking at the launch of Pakatan Harapan’s shadow budget, Rafizi said this could be achieved by any government.

“It is incumbent on everyone that if we manage this country fiscally well there will never be any need for GST by any government in the future,” he said.

He was responding to a question on whether Pakatan would implement the GST in the future.

This after the opposition coalition said its alternative budget for 2016 would ‘effectively abolish’ the need for GST.

This will be achieved by zero-rating all goods and services.

Asked why they would go zero-rated instead of abolishing the tax completely, Rafizi said it was so that the RM5 billion the government has sunk into GST training and software would not go to waste.

Instead he said, all that needs to be done is to change the systems so that the GST rate is zero percent instead of six percent.

In their alternative budget, Pakatan also sai the lack of GST can be offset by savings gained by eliminating wastage and corruption.

High-speed rail project to be scrapped

The Kuala Lumpur-Singapore high-speed rail (HSR) project will be scrapped under Pakatan Harapan’s alternative budget.

The funds that would be allocated for this will instead be re-directed to building a rail network in Sabah and Sarawak.

“Given the excellent transportation links between KL and Singapore, we feel that the HSR is not necessary at this point of time.

“We would divert the estimated RM35 billion for the HSR to build a railway network (which currently does not exist) from Kuching to Tawau via Kota Kinabalu,” Pakatan’s alternative budget 2016 book read.

This, they said, will generate multiplier effects on economic development.