SHAH ALAM, 10 Jan: The statement issued by the Chairman of the Public Accounts Commission (PAC), Datuk Nur Jazlan Mohamed, that the government should issue a table listing controlled items so that there is no element of surprise, thus giving the people a chance to brace the situation was reproached by the Member of Parliament for Pandan, Rafizi Ramli.
Rafizi, who is also the Parti Keadilan Rakyat (PKR) Strategy Director, said that Nur Jazlan should not only question the move to not issue the table of price increases of goods, but that the list should have been issued before the 13th General Election (GE13)..
“Daruk Jazlan said that it is better for the people if the government announced the goods which will increase in price or not. I agree with the statement. But is the Barisan Nasional (BN) government is transparent like this before the GE13, then Datuk Jazlan will not be here,” he said.
Rafizi said this when he was a panelist at the 25th Sinar Harian Discourse discussing the Economic Shock After the 13th General Election, which was held at the Media Karangkraf Group Auditorium Complex yesterday.
Rafizi said that the matter proposed by Nur Jazlan is difficult to be implemented by BN because it has become the practice of the party to not be transparent with the people, in addition to concealing decisions that burden the people until the last minute in order to protect their political interests.
Nur Jazlan also received boos from about 200 spectators in attendance due to his failure to answer questions related to the current amount of the national debt when he was asked by a member of the audience when it was open to the audience to ask questions.
Rafizi once again refuted Nur Jazlan’s allegations that the increase in price of goods in the country is due to the consumers’ dependency on imported goods such as vehicles.
Instead, Rafizi said that the price of goods in Malaysia has increased sharply, including imported cars due to the government’s tax policies.
“The number of imported cars in the country is not much because 80 percent are assembled in Malaysia, such as Honda and Mercedes, but are imposed the excise duty as well as high sales tax,” he said.
