Hanya 28% rakyat Malaysia sokong GST...

62% rakyat Malaysia tidak menyokong GST...

Badan penyelidik bebas, Merdeka Center mendedahkan sebanyak 62% rakyat Malaysia tidak menyokong pelaksanaan cukai kontroversi Cukai Barangan dan Perkhidmatan (GST).

Kaji selidik melibatkan seramai 1,009 orang itu dibuat pada bulan lepas, malahan 33% daripada responden tidak memahami mengenai GST.

Semalam, kira-kira hampir 20 ribu orang berhimpun secara aman di Dataran Merdeka untuk membantah pelaksanaan cukai tersebut oleh Putrajaya yang akan berkuatkuasa 1 April, 2015.‎

"62% responden tidak bersetuju dengan pelaksanaan GST, jelas menunjukkan walaupun hasil yang akan diperoleh daripada cukai pengguna tersebut, kebanyakan orang awam tidak menyokong pelaksanaannya," kata penyelidik bebas itu.

Selari dengan kaji selidik tersebut, sebanyak 64% responden berkata mereka tidak faham bagaimana ekonomi negara akan bergerak.

"Pandangan tersebut lazimnya datang daripada isi rumah yang berpendapatan rendah, sekitar kawasan pedalaman dan di kalangan wanita," kata Merdeka Center.

Kaji selidik tersebut dijalankan oleh Merdeka Center sekitar 12 hingga 21 April.

62% rakyat Malaysia tolak sistem cukai GST...

Daripada kaji selidik itu, 1,009 responden yang juga pengundi  adalah 60% Melayu, 31% Cina dan 9% India serta dijalankan menerusi panggilan telefon.

Responden dipilih berdasarkan persampelan rawak berlapis bersama-sama etnik, jantina dan negeri didiami.

Responden juga ditanya sama ada GST adalah sistem cukai yang adil dan 40% memberi jawapan negatif.

Kaji selidik itu juga melibatkan jumlah responden yang sama rata antara lelaki dan wanita dari kawasan pedalaman dan bandar mendapati 45% mengatakan GST tidak adil.

Lebih memburukkan, seramai responden 46% tidak yakin Barisan Nasional (BN) mampu menangani ekonomi sehingga 2020, sekaligus menjejaskan imej Perdana Menteri Datuk Seri Najib Razak.

Bagaimanapun, kaji selidik mendedahkan responden kaum Cina juga tidak yakin dengan kemampuan Putrajaya untuk memacu ekonomi negara.

Sebanyak 73% daripada responden kaum Cina dan 45% responden Melayu mempersoalkan cara Putrajaya mengendalikan ekonomi Malaysia.

Walaupun dengan pengenalan GST tahun depan, 51% daripada responden berkata mereka tidak yakin Putrajaya akan dapat mengendalikan ekonomi negara dan memulihkan defisit fiskal.

Hanya 38% daripada 1,009 responden menyatakan mereka mempunyai keyakinan ke atas pentadbiran Najib dapat menangani ekonomi Malaysia dan defisit fiskal.

Di samping itu, 52% daripada responden berasa Malaysia tidak akan dapat mencapai status negara maju dalam masa enam tahun, seperti yang disasarkan oleh Putrajaya.

Bagaimanapun, 41% responden berpendapat negara akan mencapai status negara maju menjelang 2020. 

Yang mengejutkan adalah kebanyakan yang tidak bersetuju dengan kadar percukaian baru itu bukannya pelajar atau pengganggur sebaliknya peniaga.

Kajian itu menunjukkan peratusan paling tinggi yang tidak bersetuju dengan GST - 68 peratus - bekerja sendiri.

Ini berlaku walaupun kerajaan membelanjakan jutaan ringgit untuk perisian membantu memudahkan proses pengutipan GST.

Kajian itu turut mendedahkan 53 peratus dari penjawat awam dan pekerja di syarikat berkaitan kerajaan menolak GST.– tmi/mk

62% of Malaysians not in favour of GST...

Merdeka Centre said today that 62 percent of Malaysians surveyed have rejected the Goods and Services Tax (GST) despite the government's decades-long planning and recent publicity campaign on its benefits.

The survey of 1,009 registered voters adhering to the country's ethnic composition, also revealed that one in two did not understand what GST was all about.

An even larger proportion - 64 percent of those surveyed from Apr 12 to Apr 21 - had no clue how the economy works.

"This view was more prevalent among respondents coming from lower income households, rural areas and among women," the survey released by Merdeka Centre for Opinion Research said.

The independent pollster noted that as much as 39 percent said they "strongly disagreed" with GST. Some of them were probably at the May 1 rally in Kuala Lumpur yesterday, where over 50,000 people thronged Dataran Merdeka and staged a peaceful, albeit short sit-in protest.

Surprisingly, it was not students and the unemployed who dreaded the new tax the most but businesses.

The survey noted that the highest proportion of those who disagreed with GST, 68 percent were self-employed.
This is despite the government spending millions on software to help ease the process of collecting GST.

The survey also revealed that even among civil servants and employees of government-linked corporations, 53 percent also rejected GST. The government today threatened to sack civil servants who took part in yesterday's anti-GST rally as it went against the government's aspirations.

The survey interviewed Malays, Chinese and Indian Malaysians over the phone.

It found that Malays had the lowest understanding of GST, with 62 percent - more than the overall 53 percent mark -  saying that they didn't really understand the GST.

The reverse was true for Indians surveyed, with 65 percent agreeing that they understood the tax, which would start at six percent from April 2015.

A new GST bill was passed in Parliament last month.

Prior to that, the government had first introduced a GST bill in 2009 but subsequently withdrew it a year later due to protests and then spent more years educating the people about the tax.

Poorest have least understanding

Even though the GST was expected to hit the poor hardest and the government has promised to handout cash through Bantuan Rakyat1Malaysia (BR1M) to help, the survey found that the poorest still understood the least about the consumption tax.

Merdeka Centre said that nearly three-quarters of households earning less than RM1,500 a month did not understand GST and the same proportion said they didn't have follow the national economy at all.

Promoters of the GST have said that it is bitter medicine but it was for the long term health of the Malaysian economy.

It would help cure a huge national debt accumulated by the BN government, which has also spent more than it has collected over the last 15 years. The government expected to earn over RM3 billion more a year from GST.

But the Merdeka Centre survey also showed that most people didn't know this too.

The survey said that 59 percent of Malaysians did not know what was the "government fiscal deficit issue" being talked about. Only four percent could say they knew a great deal about such issues.

Unsurprisingly, almost all the Chinese respondents indicated their lack of faith in Putrajaya's skills in steering the country's economy.

Some 73% of Chinese respondents and 45% of Malay respondents questioned Putrajaya's handling of Malaysia's economy.

Even with the introduction of the GST next year, 51% of respondents said they were not confident that Putrajaya would be able to handle the country's economy and fiscal deficit.

Only 38% of the 1,009 respondents indicated that they had confidence that Najib's administration would be able to tackle Malaysia's economy and fiscal deficit issues.

In addition, 52% of the respondents felt Malaysia would not be able to attain developed nation status in six years’ time, as projected by Putrajaya.

However, 41% of the respondents felt that the nation would reach developed nation status by 2020. – mk/tmi

The results of a poll on people's confidence in Najib's handling of the economy.(Keputusan pengundian tentang keyakinan rakyat terhadap pengendalian ekonomi oleh Najib)...

Malaysia gets a 'D’,South Korea gets a 'A-’in handling of tragedies...

Putrajaya was once again slammed by a Bloomberg columnist who compared Malaysia's handling of the MH370 saga with South Korea's response to the recent Sewol ferry tragedy. In a scathing attack, columnist William Pesek said he would give top marks to South Korea for their handling of the ferry tragedy but found Malaysia sorely lacking in...

He said the incidents could be described as tests for the two governments, if not of Malaysian and South Korean societies.

"The grades so far? I’d give Korea an A-, Malaysia a D," he said in his Bloomberg column titled "One missing jet, one sunken ferry, two responses".

Pesek said in the two weeks since the ferry sank, killing about 300 people on board, the South Korean government had reacted with self-questioning, shame and official penitence.

"President Park Geun Hye issued a dramatic and heartfelt apology. Her No. 2, Prime Minister Chung Hong Won, resigned outright. Prosecutors hauled in the ship’s entire crew and raided the offices of its owners and shipping regulators. Citizens and the media are demanding speedy convictions and long-term reforms," he said.

On the flip side, there was no such reaction on the part of Malaysian authorities 56 days after MH370 vanished, said Pesek.

"No officials have quit. Prime Minister (Datuk Seri) Najib Razak seems more defiant than contrite. The docile local news media has focused more on international criticism of Malaysia's leaders rather than on any missteps by those leaders themselves," he said.

Pesek said although both countries are democracies, the key difference is the relative openness of their political systems.

"One party has dominated Malaysia since independence, while Korea, for all its growing pains and occasional tumultuousness, has seen several peaceful transfers of power over the past quarter-century.

"Unused to having to answer critics, Malaysia’s government has responded defensively.

"Korean officials, on the other hand, are reflecting, addressing the anger of citizens, and delving into what went wrong with the shipping industry’s regulatory checks and balances," he pointed out.

Pesek said South Korea was most likely to emerge from the crisis stronger than ever, unlike Malaysia.

He said this could be seen from the way both countries handled the 1997 Asian financial crisis.

Pesek said Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad, who was the prime minister then, had blamed the ringgit's plunge on some shadowy Jewish cabal headed by George Soros instead of internalising what had gone wrong.

"It didn't admit it had been using capital inflows unproductively and that coddling state champions; including Malaysia Airlines; was killing competitiveness. Never did the ruling United Malays National Organisation consider it might be part of the problem."

Pesek said South Korea, on the other hand, forced weak companies and banks to fail, accepting tens of thousands of job losses.

South Korean authorities, he said, clamped down on reckless investing and lending and addressed moral hazards head-on.

"Koreans felt such shame that millions lined up to donate gold, jewellery, art and other heirlooms to the national treasury."

Pesek said while South Korea's response wasn't perfect, the country’s economic performance since then speaks for itself.

"Now as then, Korea’s open and accountable system is forcing its leaders to look beyond an immediate crisis. Ordinary Koreans are calling for a national catharsis that will reshape their society and its attitude toward safety. Park’s government has no choice but to respond.

"Malaysia’s government, on the other hand, appears to be lost in its own propaganda.

"To the outside world, acting Transport Minister (Datuk Seri) Hishammuddin Hussein performed dismally as a government spokesman: He was combative, defensive and so opaque that even China complained.

"Yet Hishammuddin is now seen as prime-minister material for standing up to pesky foreign journalists and their rude questions. The government seems intent on ensuring that nothing changes as a result of this tragedy.

"As hard as it seems now, South Korea will move past this tragedy, rejuvenated. Malaysia? I'm not so sure." - tmi

Read full article

MH370 preliminary report raises more questions than answers about Malaysia’s response

MH370 aid offices did nothing for families and released report were the same old information, just to show the public that they’re being transparent ...

The relatives of Malaysians on board Flight MH370 are indifferent to Malaysia Airlines’ decision to close all its family assistance centres by May 7, according to one of them.

“It makes no difference to us because the committee tasked to help us did nothing to alleviate our suffering anyway,” said Nur Syafinaz Mohamed Asnan, a younger sister of Mohamed Hazrin, a steward on the flight.

“We had moved back home since the Prime Minister announced that the flight crashed into the Indian Ocean.”

Syafinaz claims that her sentiment is representative of the feelings of other affected Malaysians. If so, then it is in sharp contrast to how the relatives of Chinese nationals took MAS’s announcement. They reacted with tears and screams of frustration.

Syafinaz told FMT most of the relatives relied on information from the media rather than from the family assistance centres.

“These centres did nothing to help us,” she said. “Most, if not all of the information we get are from outside sources. Shutting down these centres will not affect me or my family.

“I am more frustrated over the airline’s inability to provide us with updated information.”

MAS said in a statement yesterday that its officials would continue to provide the relatives with information on the progress of the search for MH370 and update them on investigations into what went wrong with the flight. It advised the relatives to go home.

The government-linked airline company also said it would soon make advance compensation payments to the next of kin of the 239 people on board, part of a final package to be agreed upon later. It did not specify amounts in the advance payments.

Syafinaz also commented on yesterday’s public release of a preliminary report on MH370 that Malaysia had earlier submitted to the International Civil Aviation Organisation.

“It’s pointless,” she said. “It’s the same old information. Nothing has changed.

“The reason they released the information is to show the public that they’re being transparent.”

Syafinaz also alleged that the report and other data released yesterday were “full of holes” because MAS had “scrapped out all the important information.”

MH370, carrying 227 passengers and a crew of 12, went missing on March 8 while en route to Beijing from KLIA.-fmt

Kata seorang penjawat awam "Saya penjawat awam dan saya memang bantah GST...lebih2 lagi khabar tahun hadapan sebahagian besar barang dan perkhidmatan dah kena GST,gaji tak cukup..saya kerja untuk orang awam tapi saya pun kena sara keluarga dan mahu makan ma ..."

Wrong to label govt staff at anti-GST rally traitors, says legal expert

Pakai baju merah, masuk.dalam kumpulan demo, dengan harapan nak menyamar.Tuuiii! Macam kita tak kenal...Kalau ye pun nak menyamar sebagai peserta anti GST, tak usah lah tayang pistol kau tu...

cheers.