SIBU: The opposition and organisers of the protest against Goods and Services Tax (GST) are already pre-empting that prices of goods and cost of living are going up, even before its implementation.
Asajaya assemblyman Datuk Abdul Karim Rahman Hamzah who observed this said he believed the rally was an attempt to sow seeds of hatred and distrust towards the government.
“The fact that 160 countries have already imposed GST without much hassle and outcry shows that GST is a good tax system,” Abdul Karim, who is Assistant Minister of Youth Development, told The Borneo Post yesterday.
He added that he could understand if this protest was held when the imposition of GST had clearly shown prices of goods were going up, causing a burden.
As such, he opined that the protest was nothing more than an opposition demonstration under disguise of a protest against the GST.
“I am sure majority of those who attended the gathering are opposition supporters.
“When I see the pictures of the front liners in the gathering, I can see they seem well prepared for ‘battle’ with the authority.
“So, the question is…are the organisers of the gathering really sincere in putting across to the government the shortcoming of GST by having a rally or did they just want to demonstrate and create havoc?
“I believe the organisers just wanted to keep building up the momentum of hate and distrust towards the government by opposing anything that the government does or proposes and when opportunity arises, demonstrations were held,” Abdul Karim stated.
The PBB supreme council member however, was uncertain whether the participants of the protest really knew what GST was.
“Looking at the mechanism of GST and its effect…if it is properly regulated and all parties involved sincerely do their part and ensure nobody try to exploit the situation by increasing prices of goods, the imposition of GST should be able to reduce a lot of prices of products in the market now,” he opined.
He reckoned that if the enforcement units were slow or were not effective, this short period of uncertainty come
April 2015 will show some unscrupulous retailers taking advantage to make quick profits by increasing prices of products unnecessarily under the pretext that tax had increased.
Meanwhile, Nangka assemblyman Dr Annuar Rapaee noted the opposition was given a chance to debate the bill in parliament in a democratic way as people’s representatives and was puzzled why they did not make full use of the opportunity.
“No reason why we don’t implement GST as other countries in the world are using the system and it has proven to be the best way for tax,” Dr Annuar said.
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