Budget 2010: Opposition happy with green tech incentives, puzzled over tax

Written by Chan Kok Leong
Friday, 23 October 2009 20:16

KUALA LUMPUR: While there were positives in the Budget 2010 proposals tabled by Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak, several niggling concerns have left the opposition leaders puzzled.

“There are apparent weaknesses in the Budget,” said Opposition Leader Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim at a press conference in the Parliament lobby on Friday after Najib delivered the speech.

“While the Prime Minister has announced that he wants to bring down the deficit from the current 7.4%, there does not seem to be any clear
measures," he said

Although, he did not elaborate, Anwar said the goodies given seemed to be balanced out by new charges for credit card users.

The Permatang Pauh MP was equally surprised by the lack or absence of mention on the defence budget.

“Promises were made during the Bagan Pinang by-election earlier this month. But looks like these have been forgotten.

“Anyway, this is the first time that there has been no mention of defence in the annual budget,” said Anwar, a former finance minister.

Anwar also took issue with the huge decline in foreign direct investment from RM19.7 billion to RM3.3 billion.

“A thorough investigation must be done to see what went wrong as FDI went up for countries like China and India.”

He also expressed concern with the reduction in development expenditure.

“If the government income contracts and development expenditure is reduced at the same time, how are we going to maintain the same growth rate?” Anwar asked.

For PAS deputy president Nasharuddin Mat Isa, Budget 2010 looks like a populist proposal, that is reduction in personal taxes.

“While the government is now encouraging universities to conduct business to increase income, there seems to be no mention of how to develop human capital," he said.

The Bachok MP also expressed concern with the decline in FDI and the low broadband penetration rate in Malaysia.

During the Budget proposal, Najib told Dewan Rakyat that Malaysia’s broadband penetration rate is 25%, compared with Singapore at 88%, Japan 64% and South Korea is 90%.

Penang Chief minister Lim Guan Eng said he was pleased with the incentives announced to promote green TECHNOLOGY [].

“This will help reduce our carbon footprint and hopefully it will bring us closer to the Kyoto and Copenhagen protocol.

“I hope the federal government will introduce initiatives to reduce the usage of plastic bags too. It is something we can work on together,” said Lim, who is the Bagan MP.

But he queried the different tax rate suggested for Iskandar Development Region and the rest of the country.

“This budget is supposed to be 1Malaysia. How can that be when those residing in Iskandar will enjoy a tax rate of 15% while the rest of the country is taxed at 26%?”

The DAP secretary-general also proposed that the government “give” out money to eradicate hardcore poverty in the country.

The hardcore poverty level in Peninsular Malaysia is at RM420 while for Sabah and Sarawak, it is RM650.