Sugar And GST: Anwar: Scholar, Politician, or A Clown?

Hantu Laut

I don't quite understand this man.Sometimes, he makes sense, other time, blowing hot air.

Maybe, it's time Anwar Ibrahim cuts the cuckle and get real. His remonstrances against the GST has turned ridiculously tasteless and deplorable for an educated man like him.

How can Malaysia be wrong when over 160 developed, developing and under-developed countries have adopted the GST or VAT to their tax structure.

He sounds the typical crab mentality in a "king of the hill"match when he condemned the removal of sugar subsidy and alleged that the taking away of subsidy stands to benefit sugar manufacturers, particularly, Syed Mokhtar Al-Bukhary. 

The figures he quoted make no sense. The government claimed to have subsidised the price of sugar, but his imputation  make it seemed that it was the manufacturers who actually subsidised the commodity by lowering the price. He said now that the subsidy has been removed the manufacturers/distributors profits have skyrocketed. Story here.

For decades the distribution of sugar in the country was the monopoly of one Chinese towkay and there was not a squeak from Anwar's mouth. 

For more than half a century the sugar trade was controlled by Robert Kwok's companies and Anwar who was Finance Minister and Deputy Prime Minister then did not complain of such monopoly and did not call for its removal. The "Sugar King" had complete control over the distribution of the commodity before Felda took over his manufacturing complex. Anwar had the power to change things then, why didn't he?

It's OK for Chinese to be rich, but Malays must not become too rich even if they worked hard for their success and Syed Mokhtar is a businessman just like any other Chinese businessman whose success and reliability in making things happen have attracted those in power to give him huge projects where other Malay manufactured entrepreneurs are likely to fail. One should admire him, not resort to argumentum ad invidiam.

May I ask Anwar, if GST/VAT is such a regressive tax how come over 160 countries adopted the tax regime, even more so, highly developed countries ?

Malaysia’s Mahathir Attacks Another Successor

Former Premier accuses Najib’s allies of buying votes in October intraparty polls

Former Malaysian Premier Mahathir Mohamad today appears to have fired the first volley of a widely anticipated attack on Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak, saying the premier’s allies in recent United Malays National Organization intraparty polls preserved their positions in the UMNO hierarchy by buying votes.

"We are told that they've eliminated corruption during the recent UMNO election, I am not convinced,” Mahathir told a conference at the country’s administrative capital of Putra Jaya. Although he didn’t mention Najib by name, he said: "I think there was a lot of money involved, going into the millions, and loads of people who should not be getting votes were getting votes because of the money they spent."

It’s uncertain how much clout the 88-year-old former prime minister still has within the party. He ruled as prime minister for 22 years until handing the position on to Abdullah Ahmad Badawi as his anointed successor in 2003. However, the implications are that the party, Malaysia’s biggest, may face a period of instability as the factions slug it out.

The next showdown, if there is one, could occur when UMNO holds its annual general assembly on Dec. 2-7 although a source in the Mahathir wing of the party said: “It could be, but there isn’t going to be a big bang. Gradual fireworks.”

A recent poll named Mahathir the most popular figure in UMNO, with a 75 percent approval rating, although that didn’t translate into votes for his allies in the UMNO intraparty elections.

Najib emerged from the May 5 national elections appearing badly weakened after the Barisan Nasional lost the popular vote for the first time since 1969 although it preserved a diminished parliamentary majority thanks to gerrymandering. Mahathir and Daim Zainuddin, the former finance minister, blamed Najib for reaching out too much to the country’s Chinese and Indian minorities at the cost of votes from UMNO’s ethnic Malay base.

After the election, Mahathir damned Najib with faint praise in a speech in Tokyo, saying the prime minister would stay in office because there wasn’t anybody at the time to replace him. Bloggers aligned with Mahathir have been staging attacks on the prime minister since the May polls, with one describing him as a “bug on the windshield.”

Read more.

Where Ignorance Is Bliss, 'tis Folly To Be Wise: Bumiputra Follies

Hantu Laut

Today, Suria Capital Holdings Bhd proudly announced its JV with SBC Corporation Bhd to develop  Jesselton Quay to the tune of RM1.8 billion in net sale value. Both are public listed companies on the KLSE, one bumiputra dominated and the other Chinese dominated. Suria's asset base is bigger than that of SBC.The story here.

It's the same old story with most GLCs, they can't do their own things, forever will never learn the trade, or run a proper business of their own. They will always run to the Chinaman to do the business for them.

It is time that all bumiputra individuals, enterprises and GLCs grow up, learn to take risk and do their own things.

The biggest culprits are GLCs run by bumiputras who do fuck all, give everything to the Chinaman to do under JV scheme, where greater part of the profit will go to the Chinaman and the government agency landed with teeny-weeny portion of the profit.

All over the country the same stories are being repeated year after year and the bumiputras never got to learn the trade and they are happy not to, doing so mean having to do extra work.

I have seen over the years that I have been doing business here and in Peninsula Malaysia almost every GLCs over there and in Sabah with prime land in the middle of the city do JV with Chinese businessmen to develop the land that they got for nothing from the government .

For the happy Chinaman the land cost is zero and the risk is almost zero, all they have to do is provide the building plans, raise the financing, appoint the contractor and market the properties and all the costs are paid for by the project, while the so-called high calibre bumiputra management team sit on their arses and enjoy the big fat salaries and perks for doing nothing.

Is it that difficult to be a developer like the Chinaman?

All Chinese businesses had humble beginning, start from the bottom and build their way up, they don't go to college to learn to be a contractor or developer. It's a learning process that takes years through experience and exposures. Some will succeed and some will fall by the wayside, but that the risk you have to take doing business.

It is a great shame that with such prime land and a bankable proposal the bumiputras still can't undertake the project on their own.

Name it, SEDCO, SUDC, Warisan Harta Sabah and many others, there is always the indispensable Chinaman in the midst.

Maybe, the government should employ only Chinaman to head every GLCs, so all the profits can stay with the company.

It's obvious without the Chinese the economy of this country is fucked.

GST: Najib, Do It Now ! Ask Malaysians What They Can Do For The Country

Hantu Laut

We are left far behind because of decades of government pampering a lazy and subsidy-minded population. 

Many Malaysians believe government subsidies as of entitlement rather than of charity. Unless we do it now, implement the GST, Malaysia will forever be caught in the middle income trap.

In order to maintain its competitiveness, in order to sustain long-term growth and increasing employment and getting the country to higher income level, the government must change its tax structure and its reliance from direct taxes to indirect taxes. 

Direct taxes and some indirect taxes are deemed uncompetitive as such taxes are being subjected to abuses. Cheating and evasion of income, sale and excise taxes are common among businesses in the country, resulting in massive loss of revenues. GST is the most efficient and effective way to collect taxes. Other than GST the government must also reduce all subsidies, gradually to zero level. 

The right thing to do is to increase income, not reduce the cost of goods through subsidies to please an already unproductive population. 

Malaysians compared to countries like Singapore, Hong Kong, Taiwan, South Korea and China have poorer per unit output in productivity. Higher productivity signifies a healthy and expanding economy, which have helped those countries progressed economically by leaps and bounds, leaving Malaysia behind in a stagnated middle income pool.

A slow Malaysia was fault of the government, who have been trying to please a population into keeping them in office in perpetuity. The BN government should know by now all those years of cradle coddling has backfired on them and they are likely to lose the next GE if nothing bewitching is done to appease a disconcerted and angry population.

Some critics consider GST to be a regressive tax, as the poor pay more, as percentage of their income, than the rich. It has its pros and cons, but in the longer term it will benefit the population as a whole. 

I have travelled to many much poorer countries, which have introduced GST or VAT long before Malaysia mooted the idea, which shows how out of sync we are with the rest of the world. 

To date 146 countries, including poor countries like Cambodia, Pakistan, Vietnam, Nepal, Bangladesh, Laos, India and many more, have added GST to their tax structure.

Are we worse off than these poor countries, some with per capita income of less than US$1,000.

The opposition's campaign against GST being unsuitable here on the premise that there are still plenty poor people in the country doesn't hold water. It boils down to war of nerves to demonise and further weaken a limping ship that may not make it to port.

There is no abject poverty in Malaysia compared to the many countries I have visited over the years where many families could not afford three decent meals a day and many are hapless victims of circumstances and not of their choosing. 

Malaysians have wide ranging choices and Malaysia was ready for GST a decade ago but a myopic government have failed to see its silver lining, preferring to giving subsidies instead of increasing income and standard of living of the people through higher productivity.

Najib should not heed the oppositions berating him against implementing the GST, he should introduce it in the 2014 Budget. The tax should be broad-based and should not be too high or too low. I think a starting rate between 4 to 7% will not burden the people. There will be some exemptions like export of goods, international services and other items deemed essentials and should be zero-rated, but it must still be broad-based, otherwise, it will defeat the whole purpose and objective of the GST.

As John F .Kennedy said in his inaugural speech when elected as President of the United States "My fellow Americans:ask not what your country can do for you - ask what you can do for your country"


Malaysians suck!

(The people's opposition to the GST is mainly the government fault as nothing has been done to explain to the common people the mechanic and the long term benefits of the GST. The government machinery is still fast asleep)