Deputy Finance Minister Ahmad Maslan will abide by Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak's instruction not to comment on the the mobile prepaid GST issue.

Earlier today, Najib had said on his Twitter account that only Communication and Multimedia Minister Ahmad Shabery Cheek can make announcements on the matter.

"He (Najib) has just given the instruction, so I will abide by his instruction. Before this, there was no such instruction," Ahmad said at a press conference in Permatang Pauh today.

Ahmad added Shabery will take over future announcements since Najib had directed him to do so.

"It's now out of my job scope. Thank you for taking over," he said, laughing.

Pointing out that he had been fighting on the issue all along, Ahmad said he had been misquoted by several newspapers that prepaid cards were not taxed under the Goods and Services Tax (GST).

"I never said that. I just said that because it previously had the sales and services tax (included), so with GST, the price should remain the same," he said.

Asked whether he would be making statements on the matter, Ahmad joked that he would only stop making statements about the prepaid card issue.

Ahmad and Shabery had appeared to be at odds with each other the price of mobile prepaid reload cards.

Shabery had sided with his ministry’s agency, the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission, who said telecommunications companies (telcos) will not revert to pre-GST prices.

But Ahmad had sided with the Customs Department, which demanded telcos to revert to pre-GST prices as decided in a cabinet meeting.

‘Shabery, please take charge of the top-up issue’