Friday, September 07, 2007

Budget 2008: Who Benefits?

Looks like my post-budget work hasn't completed. So just some quick announcements here. There are going to be plenty of discussions and forums on the Government's Budget 2008, yes, the much touted pre-election budget today at 4pm (and I'll be stationed at the Parliament).

For those who are interested to read the DAP version of the Budget, you can now download both the English version as well as the Chinese version. The Malay version is "work in progress".

But for a start, here's what you can do to find out more this weekend:

1. SinChew Budget Discussion Forum (Mandarin)

I'll be speaking tonight (yes, that's this evening!) on the Budget presented by the Prime Minister at the Sin Chew Jit Poh Auditorium in Petaling Jaya. The forum will be in Mandarin together with 3 other eminent speakers. Details are as follows:
Date: 7 Sep 2007
Time: 8.00 pm
Venue: Sin Chew Jit Poh Auditorium, Petaling Jaya
2. Malaysian First: Budget 2008 - Who Benefits? (Mandarin)

The first in a series of forums to be held by the DAP after the Prime Minister announces the budget will be on this Sunday (9th Sep) evening (7.30pm) at the KL & Selangor Chinese Assembly Hall. This one is a Mandarin forum:
大马人优先:2008预算案谁得益?
Date/日期:2007年9月9日星期日
Time/时间:晚上7时30分
Venue/地点:吉隆坡雪兰莪中华大会堂楼上会议室 (KLSCAH)

主讲人:
  • 民主行动党秘书长林冠英 (Lim Guan Eng)
  • 著名经济评论人何启斌博士 (Dr Ho Kee Peng)
  • 秘书长经济顾问潘俭伟 (Tony Pua)
  • 时事评论人刘镇东 (Liew Chin-Tong)
We will be organising an English Budget forum early next week in Petaling Jaya. We will provide the update on details once the speakers, date and venue is finalised.

See you! ;)

23 comments:

zewt said...

there is a typo in item 40 page 16.... it sould be 26% in YA2008.

Anonymous said...

巫文与淡米尔文的版本呢?
Please provide the malay and tamil edition.

Anonymous said...

tony,

If possible pls make the document available in html format as well. Some users prefer flipping the document through website instead of downloading it and have it read using Adobe software. just my 2 cents.. thanks..

best wishes..

Anonymous said...

Basically I am not impressed at all about the BN's Budget 2008. It's a poor budget indeed. On Education front, again it emphasises on quantity and not quality. Very disappointed that there is no reduction in personal income tax.

In Singapore, the maximum personal income tax is only 20%, whereas it's 28% in Malaysia. How to attract more talents to work in Malaysia then?

It is ok if the BN government wants to tax higger, provided our money is spent wisely and not used for bailouts to the corrupted politicians and their cronies.

Anonymous said...

Dear voters: Please be wise when you vote. There are lots of promises in the budget but don't be fooled again. 4 years ago the same guy had given his promises to build a corruption free country, a racial harmony country, a more secured place, ...amongst others. See what we get today? We get worse. Being cheated once is ignorant and being cheated twice is stupid. Please think very carefully when you vote.

Anonymous said...

every citizen must know this rule..

THE more BN feel they are going to lose...THE MORE THE RAKYAT WILL GAIN...

Anonymous said...

As time goes by...........................

RM10.0 billion to bail out Northern Corridor!
RM10.0 billion to bail out IDR Corridor!
RM10.O billion to bail out Eastern Corridor!
RM50.0 billion to save the Corridor of power!

End of the day, there is not a single corridor left!

I prefer the DAP'S Budget anytime! BN is bankrupt of ideas!

Anonymous said...

Hi Tony,

Here is an interesting post:

DAP Made BN's Budget 2008 Looked Like A Plagiarised Material?

DAP made the BN government's Budget 2008 looked like a plagiarized material - albeit without much effort - at exactly half of pages the former has to offer. Or is there some 'mou gaan dou' (infernal affairs) going on the 4th floor? Some of the 'similar' points:

http://howsy.blogspot.com/2007/09/dap-made-bns-budget-2008-looked-like.html

Anonymous said...

Looking at the budget i dont see how it will benefit the middle income earners? Maybe to Pah Lelah the middle income earners are a loss cause for him in GE and thus his attention is to woo the lower income earners with lots of goodies.

DOnt be fooled! They give you rm1 and grab back rm5 later in the next 4 years!

Anonymous said...

DEar PM , fool us once fool us twice but i assure u that we won't be fooled by u the next time bcoz ur the type
"Cakap Tak Serupa Bikin " , i just dun buy ur explanations or ur so called election Budgets . No matter how good is ur presentation skills or ur hypocrite show actings , i assure u sir , my vote of NO CONFIDENCE stills goes out to u and the BN Parties !!!!

Former member of UMNO

Anonymous said...

the billion RM bail out of PKFZ, the sale of italian motorcycle rights for RM5, Zakarian's charges being withdrawn,etc all have been unanswered do you think the government is capable to turn the country rich?

Look at the strength of our currency compare to Singapore, Taiwan, china, Australia now with 50 years ago. Those days we were much stronger but now slipped to the bottom.

Anonymous said...

Singapore government has allowed her people to withdraw their CPF more than 25 years ago to pay for their housing loan but we are just planned to offer this scheme.malaysia is way behind singapore in term of intelligence.

Our Government doesn't notice that our EPF contribution is very low compare to singapore and our A/C 2 is definitely not enough to pay the monthly installment.Simply shooy without proper planning.

Anonymous said...

After the GE, expect this to happen:

1) Implementation of GST (or VAT - Value Added Tax). This was supposed to start in Jan 2008, but that conflicts with the GE. Effect on you? An instant increase in household and business expenditure by 3% - 5%.

2) Increase in petrol prices.

3) Increase in rice prices.

4) Increase in toll for the North-South Highway.

All of these things will generally make our cost of living go higher than what any goodies can do to soften any impact.

Anonymous said...

Yes, right... Malaysians have every reason to be happy and dandy about the budget and how it is supposed to reach out to rural areas that need development. However, haven't any of us learn anything from the past UMNO-led government? I won't believe a single word they say about allocating how many gazillion until the money reaches and touches people's lives! The key word is allocation. Those money has just been 'allocated', and haven't reach the people yet. Same fate as the many billions in relief packages promised to the Indonesians during the Asian Tsunami disaster. Other than that, how sure are we that those allocated fund will actually reach and touch people's lives when our government and local municipalities are so prone to 'bocor' accounting. Most of the money would be siphoned away into many crooked high-level officers' pockets before remaining chump change reaches the people!

Anonymous said...

Who benefit?

Paying through the nose for tools

PETALING JAYA: The Government paid RM224 to supply tools (4 screwdriver) for students at the eight National Youth Skills Institutes (IKBN) around the country, according to the Auditor-General’s (AG) report.

The AG said the screwdrivers had a market price of RM40 and according to pictures in the report, resembled the average Philips screwdrivers you could buy in any hardware shop.

And it does not stop there – the AG went a step further by examining the prices paid for 12 other tools and equipment bought for the IKBN project, comparing it with market prices when the procurement was done in late 2002.

Among these were technical books consisting 10 titles that had a price tag of RM10,700 and a 3.1 megapixel digital camera that was bought for RM8,254.

For the 13 items that the report highlighted, the Government paid RM8.39mil more than the market price at that time.

According to the report, consultants for the Youth and Sports Ministry had reached an estimated price tag of RM399.67mil for the equipment for the IKBN project which later ballooned to RM767.98mil after two appeals by the ministry for additional allocations.

“The ministry said more money was needed in anticipation of a bigger student population and that getting equipment from the same supplier meant prices would remain the same.

“But there was no proof that market research was done to identify the prices of the items and equipment because minutes for the negotiation meetings were not prepared,” the report said.

It said without the minutes, the auditing team was unable to find out if efforts were made to reduce prices.

The AG also said that the ministry’s secretary-general (KSU) had signed off 11 contracts worth between RM7.99mil and RM74.2mil that were related to the IKBN project, on behalf of the Government.

“The KSU only has the authority to sign contracts worth less than RM5mil. Anything larger should be signed by the minister or someone to whom the authority has been given.

“However, during the audit, no such letter giving the authority to the KSU presented itself,” the report said.

The report said there were also discrepancies such as one supplier being paid more than the other for exactly the same equipment.

One example the AG highlighted showed one supplier getting RM1.24mil more than the other for identical engineering equipment.

Anonymous said...

I don't get it why this is being done. Its clearly a pre-election budget with goodies spread around. Its not a lot for some people but its not nothing either. So what is the use of talking about it?

The mistake being done with this budget is that it assumes that it can get away without paying off cronies and hangers on that are addicted to it.

No bonus for civil servants that actually have improved, not much, but more than in decades. I mean the police is actually going to accept the IPCMC even though it will be a lousy version of its earlier promise.

This is what DAP should attack on, given that civil servants have done better, they should be given bonus. Worst, its likely there will be big spending before the election and so the issue is will they get bonus next year too, probably very little...

This is what the DAP and Keadilan need to attack on...

Anonymous said...

Pertaining to this budget, I have 2 questions:

1. How much does the average malaysian gain from this budget? will he stand to gain more or loose more after the toll increase this comming January?

2. If allowed PKFZ to pay till 2017, why is the Malaysian public still have to pay so much for the tolls? why is the Malaysian public being penalised?

Please answer me these two questions, mr hounarable half pass six minister.

Anonymous said...

Actually, every our PM announced the Budget and how does this really affect us? As always, it always said for the people and benefit everyone. I wonder how truth is tat as I been a tax payer since I was 21 and I dun feel anything at all beside my cost of living getting more expensive.

Since this time, PM promises more allocation for education which I think is very important for us as I think it is time for us to get more educated and smarter than always being stupid and listen to some stupid leaders for a change.

Hopefully, all MALAYSIANs can benefit from this education package.

Anonymous said...

WALK THE TALK Pak lah. Kita RAKYAT sudah bosan dengan JANJI KOSONG kamu. Cakap tak serupa bikin.

Please SACK all the HP6 GLCs gomen servants in order to improve the delivery system. Lets those people who are more qualified to fill in the post and not recruit only gomen servant must be with UMNO connection. GAJI BUTA!!!

Anonymous said...

Not impressed at all about this budget, I will still vote opposition!!!

Anonymous said...

Question: Who the blazes can sleep standing up?

Answer: http://malaysia-today.net/blog2006/pictures.php?itemid=7992

Sing F Lau said...

Tony, section 172 seems to be blank.

Anonymous said...

The 2008 budget was exactly like attaching a back bonnet to the GEN 2.0 and call it PERSONA! 95% of it was the old stuff. No impact and no value to man on the street.