Press Statement by Daniel Gooi, Penang State Assemblyman for Pengkalan Kota on 16 July 2019 (Tuesday) in George Town, Penang:
I wish to refer to the recent statement made by Datuk Dr Noraini Ahmad, the Parliament Public Accounts Committee (PAC) Chairman who insisted that “no GST money went missing”.
In the said statement, the PAC report had shown that GST collections were not transferred into the Fund for GST Refunds as stipulated under the GST Act 2014 and instead, it went into the Consolidated Revenue Account and were used up for Operating and Development Expenditure by the previous administration, leaving a shortfall of RM19.25 billion in the Fund for GST Refunds.
If such action were conducted by the previous administration, by not adhering to the regulations clearly stipulated under the GST Act 2014, isn’t this daylight robbing? I could not find a proper definition to describe the said misappropriation of funds by the previous administration other than “stealing and misuse of funds”.
Let’s put this action by the previous administration on a hypothetical example: if funds meant to pay out the salary of the opposition Member of Parliaments are not transferred into their bank accounts on time, but instead transferred into the Consolidated Revenue Account, can we apply the same concept used by Datuk Dr Noraini Ahmad and claim that the money “did not went missing” as well?
Surely that is not the case but the statement made by Datuk Dr Noraini Ahmad is truly misleading and a poor attempt to defend the previous kleptocratic administration.
If the rules and regulations set under the GST Act 2014, which the previous administration proudly claimed that this is the ‘fairer’ tax system for Malaysians and is good for the country were not followed and were used up for other purpose instead, the findings of the PAC report had shown Malaysians that this is a clear ‘caught red-handed’ situation where the previous administration are stealing from us.
It will be very monstrosity to imagine if Barisan Nasional are still in power, how much of GST money that are meant for refunds “did not went missing’.
Daniel Gooi