PETALING JAYA, 25 Jan: The Federal Government’s move to impose the Goods and Services Tax (GST) does not guarantee that the increasing national debt problem as long as the government does not take steps to control the increasingly chronic leakages and corruption.
The Parti Keadilan Rakyat (PKR) Strategy Director, Rafizi Ramli, said that this situation can be seen in other countries that charge the GST or other similar taxes but failed to solve their financial problems until some countries eventually went bankrupt, like Greece.
He said that before Greece was bankrupt, it was a country that imposed the GST of 21 percent as a tax mechanism to enable the government to obtain high income for the sake of saving the country’s economy from being further burdened by high debt.
“Our country has a high source of wealth and it is actually sufficient, but due to the failure in managing these resources wisely, we know have to own a lot and even if we collect a high GST, it will not guarantee that the financial problems of a country will be solved,” said Rafizi.
Rafizi said this at the Understand GST, Reject GST forum held at the Petaling Jaya City Council Civic Centre.
Rafizi said that the main sources of national wealth, such as oil and timber, should not make the national debt grow to RM529.2 billion or 53.6 percent of the gross domestic product (GDP) as of 30 September 2013.
Rafizi added that the Central Government should take steps to curb wasteful practices, leakages and corruption before taking steps to impose the GST.
