Najib: Dr Mahathir is a ‘U-turn champion’
(MMO) – Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad’s sudden support for the 1Malaysia People’s Aid (BR1M) after previously calling the cash handouts “bribery” shows his inconsistency in policy, Datuk Seri Najib Razak said today.
The prime minister pointed out that just last month, Dr Mahathir had claimed that BR1M was against the law and that handing out such aid was a form of corruption.
“This means if you can see lately, he has made too many U-turns with regards to his stand. So we can consider him as the champion of U-turns,” Utusan Online quoted Najib as saying in Pekan.
Last night, Dr Mahathir said that the federal Opposition will gradually repeal the controversial Goods and Services Tax (GST) if it is elected into power, and that a Pakatan Harapan government would convert the BR1M cash handouts into statutory aid.
Barisan Nasional (BN) strategic communications director Datuk Abdul Rahman Dahlan said that Dr Mahathir’s latest U-turn is proof that PPBM is unable to be consistent with their own policies.
“PPBM has been seen as a party with a penchant for U-TURNs. They chastised Lim Kit Siang and DAP before but now embraced them warmly.
“They said awful things about Anwar Ibrahim but now they worship him. I don’t think this latest U-turn will be the last,” he told Malay Mail Online when contacted.
Umno MP Datuk Nur Jazlan Mohamed said that Dr Mahathir’s BR1M remarks was typical of the former PM, whom he said would say and do anything to fit his political agenda.
“He was against populist politics when he was in power but now will promise to make BRIM permanent but remove the GST that is used by most countries in the world to fund budgets,” Nur Jazlan told Malay Mail Online.
GST was introduced in April 2015 at a rate of six per cent as a broad-based consumption tax to replace the Sales and Services Tax, while the government had introduced BR1M in 2012 with a one-off handout of RM500 to each household earning below RM3,000 monthly.
But in Pakatan Harapan’s alternative Budget 2017, the coalition had stated it would maintain the GST but implement a zero-rate policy.
The BR1M scheme has since then turned into a yearly affair, with the Barisan Nasional’s Election 2013 manifesto promising to gradually bump up the aid to hit RM1,200 and RM500 by 2018 respectively for households with monthly wages below RM3,000 and single adults with monthly wages below RM2,000.
The government has defended the BR1M scheme as a targeted subsidy for those that truly need such aid, pointing out that the fuel subsidies it had scrapped along the way is a blanket subsidy that would benefit even the rich.
