PARLIAMENT, 9 Oct: The Pakatan Rakyat (PR) Budget 2015 concentrates on correcting the country’s administrative shortcomings that has a negative impact on the well-being of the people.
Opposition Leader Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim said that this is unlike the budgets of previous years which focused on recommended policies and programmes; this time’s budget focuses on several basic issues that need immediate attention.
This includes correcting BN’s weak stewardship which caused corruption to increase in government administration and the economy, the dependence on revenue from oil and gas which is not managed prudently, lack of transparency on handling the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPPA), and the biased tax system which provides incentives to the rich.
“We projected the national income at a moderate rate of five percent based on the performance in the past five years.
“We predict that 2015 will be a tough year for the people with the challenging economic environment, coupled with Malaysia being affected by China’s slowing economic growth,” he said in a media conference during the tabling of the PR Alternative Budget 2015 in Parliament today.
Apart from that, Anwar said that the introduction of the goods and services tax (GST) will take the Consumer Price Index (CPI) up to 3.2 percent, while food will be at a high level of 4.5 percent and transportation at the rate of five percent.
He said that the government is able to manage the country’s expenditure well if the projected expenditure is at the rate of RM273 billion with a deficit value expected to go down at a rate of 2.6 percent.
“It can be achieved if the government adopts open tender, stops big budget allocations to the Prime Minister, which now stands at RM9 billion, reassesses the need to fund the Malaysia Nuclear Energy and a drastic reduction to the allocation to Pemandu and Talentcorp.
“Apart from that, the provisions to the National Service Training Programme (NS) of RM668 should also be reviewed and drastically reduce government grants to GLCs,” he added.
Please click the link to view the Pakatan Rakyat Budget 2015: Pakatan_Rakyat_Budget_2015_ENG
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