100 days of Pakatan govt: How many pledges have they kept?
(MMO) – With Pakatan Harapan (PH) marking its first 100 days as the federal government today, let’s take a quick look at its progress in fulfilling promises it planned to tackle within this period.
In its Buku Harapan or manifesto for the 14th general election held on May 9, PH did not elaborate on these brief 10-pointers, but it did lay out more details in its additional 60 promises to be fulfilled in five years (with some overlaps with the 10 promises).
Here’s the 10 promises which PH told voters it will fulfil in its first 100 days (or in just slightly over 14 weeks):
1. Abolish the Goods and Services Tax (GST) and take steps to reduce cost of living
Even before the PH government could formally do away with GST in Parliament, it stopped collecting it by zero-rating it for three months starting from June 1, giving Malaysians a tax holiday until the re-introduction of the Sales and Services Tax from September 1.
In PH’s first Parliament meeting, the GST which was collected at a six per cent rate was declared “dead” on August 8 (Day 91) by Finance Minister Lim Guan Eng after both the Sales Tax Bill and Service Tax Bill were passed in the Dewan Rakyat.
Status: Done
.jpg "People refuel their vehicles at the Bandar Puteri Puchong Petronas petrol station on May 15, 2018. — Picture by Zuraneeza Zulkifli")
2. Stabilise the price of petrol and introduce targeted petrol subsidies
Less than a month after coming into power, the Finance Ministry (MoF) announced on May 31 (Day 22) that it would maintain the retail prices for the widely-used RON95 petrol and diesel at pre-GE14 levels of RM2.20 per litre and RM2.18 per litre, instead of resuming the weekly float pricing system. MoF said this will result in RM3 billion savings for Malaysians this year, which also means that the government has to allocate RM3 billion in subsidies to absorb any increase in global oil prices.
(Promise 7 of Promise 60 envisioned petrol subsidies targeted at those who use motorcycles below 125cc / cars below 1300cc, with a quota to prevent abuse. In July, the finance minister’s written parliamentary reply said a detailed mechanism is being studied.)
Status: Partially done
3. Abolish unnecessary debts that have been imposed on FELDA settlers.
Status: No progress reported
