KAJANG, 27 Dec: The Barisan Nasional (BN) Government earns about RM70 billion a year from various payments made by the national petroleum company, PETRONAS.
The Parti Keadilan Rakyat (PKR) Strategy Director, Rafizi Ramli, said that the amount is far different from when the PKR de facto leader, Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim, was still the Finance Minister, and only collected RM3 billion from PETRONAS for the same period of time.
“For 2014, there is a possibility that the government will spend about RM300 billion. Where will they get this money? During Datuk Seri Anwar’s time, we took from PETRONAS two to three billion a year, never more.
“From the RM70 billion taken by BN, RM30 billion is in the form of dividends each year, while RM40 billion is in the form of taxes, excise duties and so on. Previously, the RM3 billion taken was enough. But now, despite taking RM70 billion, it is still not enough,” he said.
Rafizi said this in the ‘Reduce the Cost of Living’ Youth Discourse, which was also attended by the Malaysia PAS Youth Assembly Chief, Suhaizan Kayat, at the KK Hotel last night.
Rafizi said that the move would damage the future of the national economy because the financial resources from the petroleum industry are not sustainable.
“Let us look at the Plantation and Commodity Ministry; the biggest businesses are only palm oil and rubber.
“In the 2014 budget, there is a budget for the National Blue Ocean Strategy of RM40 million. When I asked what it was, the answer given was ‘what Najib says it is’ (macam yang Najib sebutlah).
“This shows that the parties concerned do not know and it is up to the minister how the money is to be spent,” he said.
Meanwhile, the same ministry also received an allocation of RM2.5 billion to finance research and development (R&D), an unreasonable cost for R&D for the rubber and palm oil commodity.
Rafizi said that the attitude of the leaders prove that the central government is more likely to pressure the people by raising the price of goods and services, in addition to introducing the Goods and Services Tax (GST) in April 2015, instead of controlling their spending desired.
“The government is introducing the tax because they thing the people are not helping; only the government is giving. Look at 2003, tax collection was about RM60 billion, compared to now, which has reached up to RM190 billion a year,” he said.
