'Why are the rakyat held responsible for all the mess and damages committed by the BN?'

M'sians made to pay for BN's profligacy

David Dass: Malaysia will go bankrupt by 2019. What a headline. This shocking declaration goes against the grain of past announcements of economic health and growth. What did we fail to see it before? What happened to our plan to become a developed nation?

A few weeks ago an economics professor from LSC (London School of Economics) said that we could be the next Greece . How were we lulled into such smugness by our previous leaders? What happened to all that oil money? Why did we have to undertake grandiose projects like Putrajaya?

I realise that these statements are designed to shock and condition Malaysians to accept the removal of subsidies and other belt-tightening measures. But the government must accept that Malaysians have become cynical about government expenditure.

Are we spending our money wisely? Are the checks against corruption good enough? Can we stem the flow and waste caused by the leakages? And given how things are, should we not bury Perkasa, ‘Ketuanan Melayu' and get on with rebuilding the economy.

Bapak Toyol: The country will not become bankrupt because of subsidies, but will become one because of corrupt Umno leaders.

Kgen: Idris Jala, please cut the subsidy to the toll operators and the gas used by the IPPs (independent power producers) before you cut the subsidy to the rakyat. Can you do that? I think not - the IPPs and toll operators will be the last to be cut, if ever, while the rakyat will be the first.

Can the government force the toll operators not to raise tolls without using public funds to compensate them? Do they need to make obscene profits every year when increased traffic will more than compensate them?

The BN government spends more to subsidise gas for IPPs, who have fat contracts with TNB (Tenaga Nasional), than for subsidising petrol. Yet the first subsidy to be cut is petrol not gas for IPPs, who use the gas subsidy to make obscene profits.

This is a government which robs the poor to give to the rich. Big corporations cannot be touched while the man in the street is a soft target to be clobbered again and again. Why ask the public to accept subsidy removal while the big corporations laugh all the way to the bank?

Jerusalem Cross: Before Malaysia is declared bankrupt, every BN politician for the last 20 years (and their families) must be audited. You will see how fast Malaysia is declared financially sound.

Anonymous: Sometime around 2002, when ‘Mahacon' was prime minister and also finance minister, he introduced exemption on real property gains tax on all properties sold in 2003. Strangely, it was around this time that Ananda Krishnan sold his 49 percent stake in the Twin Towers to Petronas for a sum of around RM2.7 billion.

The gain from this sale was believed to be around RM2.5 billion, which would have attracted a tax of at least of about 20 percent, resulting in a tax payable to the government of about RM500 million. The timing of the exemption was very questionable. Who pocketed the RM500million?

Isaac Ho: It is a well-known fact that millions upon millions of dollars are being corruptly stolen by fat cat politicians without blinking their greedy eyelids. Malaysians have been conned, so please wake up and boot these public thieves out of office in the next election.

Hopeful123: Putrajaya must admit that its leaders are not good enough to manage the economy well. Why are the rakyat held resposible for all the mess and damages committed by the BN? What happened to all the billions of ringgit that was wasted in unnecessary ‘gaya' projects?

AB (Abdullah Badawi) can write off oil fields worth hundreds of billions to a neighbouring country. Yet the rakyat must tighten their belts. Time and again, the same mistakes and no sense of remorse.

Don't just put any crony to manage the wealth of the nation. You know what will happen if you do that. Enough is enough. Don't hold the rakyat to ransom for the blunders committed by the incompetent government.

Anonymous: To begin with, we could recover the RM500 million paid to a crony company as commission for the purchase of submarines which we don't need in the first place. That's a lot of money.

Then we could go after the about-to-retire S Samy Vellu and recover millions in the form of Tenaga shares and Maika assets as well as the MIED property. The list could go on and on.

What I am trying to say is that after 50 years of rape and plunder, finally the economy starts to crumble. Too much power for too long given to any one entity is not good. The people have to learn from this fiasco and decide in next GE (general elections), or else be prepared to send your daughters and mothers to Singapore as maids.

Joe Friday: Michael Moore's film titled 'Capitalism - A love story' has a lot of similarities with the way the wheeling and dealing is done by the Umno-led BN government at the expense of the middle-class and the low-income population of the country.

Allinthegame: We will remain soft targets as long as we remain quiet. We have one very important tool - our vote. It is the responsibility of every citizen to explain to at least 10 people the impact of the subsidy removal and the implementation of GST (goods and services tax) will have on our lives.

We are already suffering with low wages and rising inflation. Any removal of the subsidies and GST implementation will burden us further. Every individual and every NGO must reach out to as many citizens as possible so that all of us will reject the implementation of subsidy removal and GST.

Idris Jala needs to do his part by telling us the leakages and corruption that have taken place over the last 30 years and bring those responsible to task. Idris, can you explain Perwaja Steel, BMF (Bank Bumiputra Malaysia), currency speculation by BNM (Bank Negara), over-inflated mega-projects, etc, etc?

Jefferson76: Yes, cut the subsidies. This the easiest way to get rid of BN as our rural brothers and sisters will see the need to stop voting for them when they can no longer put food on the table.

Ah Boss: Let Malaysia be bankrupt and seek loan assistance. Sure, the rakyat will have to work harder to pay off the foreign debt with interest, but think of the positive effects in the process such as:

1. All dubious NEP/NEM policies (30% bumiputera participation, APs, etc) that benefit only the cronies and elites (and not the common rakyat) will be abolished once and for all.

2. More transparency and restriction on the movement of our country's fund because any major funds used for projects will need to be accounted for by the loan givers.

3. Monopolised businesses (Astro, Telekom, etc) will come to an end with more foreign companies participating to boost our flagging economy. This will definitely benefit the consumers at large.

Most importantly, this is a wake-up call for the rakyat who have been voting for BN blindly all these years to realise how corrupt the government is in the management of our funds.

Cala: Pakatan Rakyat should consider doing this: fly in a set of political analysts from Greece, Argentina, Zimbabwe, and Singapore. All except Singapore are examples of failed states. Let us learn firsthand from them.

Tristan: Idris Jala has given new meaning to the ‘People First' slogan - ‘Punish the People First'.

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