Petaling Jaya, 31 Dec: The prices of goods after the Goods and Services Tax (GST) is implemented will soar, not only because of an increase in production costs and the new tax implemented, but due to the attitude of a government that is not attentive.
The Parti Keadilan Rakyat (PKR) Strategy Director, Rafizi Ramli, said that this is proved in the GST Bill presented the first time in the House of Representatives in 2009, which does not provide parts or clauses to curb rising prices.
“The statement by (Deputy Finance Minister) Datuk Ahmad Maslan that the prices will go down depends of the willingness of vendors to reduce prices voluntarily.
“The attitude of Barisan Nasional (BN) is the same as hoping that car manufacturers will reduce prices voluntarily without eliminating the excise duty, which until now is still high and has not changed, when in fact, there are some that have increased,” he said in a press conference at the PKR Headquarters yesterday.
He said that the increased cost in business forces vendors to have no choice but to raise prices to ensure the continuity of their respective businesses.
Previously, BN, in the 13th General Election (GE13) manifesto, plagarised the PR manifesto with promises to reduce car prices in stages, but at the same time, did not want to reduce the excise duty on car manufacturers.
Not long after the GE13, Utusan Malaysia announced that leading car manufacturers, Volkswagen, Peugeot and Honda, had respectively reduced the price of vehicles, in line with the BN promise in its manifesto.
However, the announcement embarrassed BN when the car manufacturers did not only deny lowering prices of certain vehicle models, but even claimed that Utusan did not refer to them before the report was written.
“Please be advised, the price on the image is incorrect. The Golf price has always been RM157,888 from the time of launch. Not RM169,888,” said a representatives from Volkswagen Malaysia on their Facebook page, referring to a Golf model.
Peugeot Malaysia also has responded on its Facebook page to the claim by Utusan that the price of its 308 model has been slashed by 11 per cent from RM115,663 to RM102,888.
Utusan also claimed that a Honda Jazz Hybrid now costs RM89,900 after a 2.5 per cent reduction from RM92,187, when the a check with the Japanese marque confirmed that the completely knocked-down (CKD) version of the model assembled in its Alor Gajah plant has always been sold at RM89,900 since its launch late last year. The completely built-up (CBU) version released previously costs RM94,800.
