GST would be the worst Malaysia Day gift, especially for Sabahans

SEPTEMBER 13 — Ah, Malaysia Day is around the corner and again, I am reminded, a public holiday was not what Sabahan activists and other voices like mine asked for.

We wanted Malaysians to remember what the date meant, for history to be less West Malaysia-centric, for East Malaysians to be rendered less invisible.

Yet again Malaysia Day comes around and a bunch of politicians plan to hold a political rally on that day to supposedly “save Malaysia” while not including a single East Malaysian in their crowd.

What I would support would be Sabahans in West Malaysia having a rally with signs such as ‘Where are our royalties” and “Fix our potholes”.

I’m sad that instead we have people from my state pleading their case, talking about their bad roads and water struggles to royalty when we have our politicians right there.

All those years under Barisan and aligned with the Federal government, and what exactly do we have to show for it really?

I think many Sabahans snorted when the Pan Borneo Highway was mentioned by the prime minister recently.

That blasted highway, that keeps getting mentioned, that seems to be getting more expensive with each mention, with the only people with cause to celebrate being whoever is getting kickbacks.

Now I hear the old GST chestnut being bandied around again to “widen the tax base”.

GST was, I truly believe, one of the biggest reasons behind the downfall of the Barisan Nasional government.

Why do our politicians forget that GST means compounding increases across the board?

Must I go to Parliament myself to do a maths presentation because I do not think they understand compounding interest and wage stagnation? I will perhaps use crayons.

It is not hard to understand — tacking on a basic GST rate of say five per cent onto prices won’t mean everything goes up by five per cent.

If you think inflation and GST-induced rising costs hurt in the Klang Valley, it will hurt East Malaysians more, where everything is already more expensive than in West Malaysia. — Picture by Zuraneeza Zulkifli

What it means is that we will see costs rising far more than five per cent, from suppliers, to logistic providers, to raw materials but do you know what will not rise, despite everything? Wages.

The haphazard, poor implementation of the GST had small traders taking their own lives in despair. They are who I think of whenever I hear GST being brought up again, and again by politicians of little imagination and even less empathy.

If you think inflation and GST-induced rising costs hurt in the Klang Valley, it will hurt East Malaysians more, where everything is already more expensive than in West Malaysia.

Just last week I saw a Reddit thread where a West Malaysian asked, how did Sabahans manage?

They were astounded at how expensive it was to eat out in the state and generally how much more things cost in one of the poorest states in the country.

Sabahans managed because they had to. Yet that strength and their easygoing nature is also their undoing, because it has made them people to be taken for granted.

If you must force GST on us, then give us things to make it sting less.

I would suggest the following measures: hire more healthcare staff, give poor households a free supply of rice, strengthen our welfare protections, eliminate tolls, increase our infrastructure maintenance budget and make us feel that tax money goes to making our lives better.

Let’s not see, instead, all that extra money go towards some investment fund that saw no returns for us taxpayers but instead went to shopping sprees and Picassos.

Better yet, instead of GST, let’s see inheritance and capital gains taxes, but at this rate it seems more likely for me to march on Parliament than for the government to not tax the poor, when poverty itself is a tax on living.

* This is the personal opinion of the columnist.