The government can no longer use petrol subsidies as an excuse to justify the exorbitant excise duties on cars after Putrajaya hiked petrol prices by 40 sen over the past year, PKR's Pandan MP Rafizi Ramli said today.

"All this while, the federal government has been giving the excuse that the high taxes on ownership and maintenance of vehicles is necessary for the government to foot the high petrol and diesel subsidy every year.

"But because of the double petrol hike within a year (20 sen in September 2013 and 20 sen in October 2014), the amount of petrol and diesel subsidies footed by the government has greatly reduced," he told a press conference in the Parliament lobby this morning.

As such, he said, the government is expected to only foot RM13.7 billion in petrol and diesel subsidies this year.

In contrast, he said, car owners were forking out a total of RM17.3 billion in taxes to the government in the form of excise duty (RM8 billion), sales tax (RM4.5 billion), import duty (RM1.1billion) and vehicle licences (RM2.4 billion).

Therefore, Rafizi said, the government should abolish the vehicle excise taxes in stages by 2017.

"We are confident that BN no longer has excuses to impose such high taxes on the ownership and maintenance of vehicles, which is a main source of debt for the rakyat," he said.

Rafizi, who spearheaded the #turunkanhargakereta campaign, which prompted BN to promise 30 percent reduction in car prices in its manifesto, said he will revive the push for reduced car prices.

'Misleading the public'

Meanwhile, Kelana Jaya MP Wong Chen slammed Deputy Finance Minister Ahmad Maslan for “misleading” the public on the amount of fuel subsidy the government has to foot.

He said this in reference to Ahmad Maslan's claim that the government was footing RM24 million in subsidies which could have been used to build 40 universities.

"Not all of the RM24 billion is used for petrol and diesel subsidies. The amount used for petrol and diesel subsidies is only RM13.7 billion.

“The remaining subsidy figures is for liquefied petroleum gas and Bantuan Rakyat 1Malaysia (BR1M) at RM1 billion respectively.

"The amount of petrol an diesel subsidies often mentioned by Ahmad is not even half of the interest that the rakyat has to pay due to BN's debt," he said, adding that the national debt is now at an estimated RM560 billion.

He added that despite Ahmad's parroting of government savings from the subsidy cuts, Putrajaya has yet to show where the money has gone to.

"I have not seen any new universities built," said Wong Chen.

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