PERIKATAN Nasional (PN) chairman Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin has hit out at Prime Minister Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim whom he said seems to care more about subduing his political opponents rather than addressing more pressing issues faced by the people.
In a Facebook post, the former prime minister said on Monday (Jan 22) the Ringgit had fallen to its lowest point in 26 years at 4.7280/7335 against the US dollar.
Meanwhile, the country’s GDP grew only 3.8% according to advanced estimates released by the Department of Statistics Malaysia (DOSM) last week, missing its projection of 4–5%.
According to Muhyiddin, Malaysia’s total trade also faced continuous decline in December last year, marking the 10th consecutive month of downturn since March 2023 while total trade had fallen by 4.3% to RM225.1 bil as compared to the previous year’s RM231 bil.
“These are all the realities faced by the people. It has been more than a year since the Madani government took over the federal administration and the people’s lives are becoming more difficult,” the Pagoh MP remarked.
“Until now I have yet to see the prime minister being capable of providing a comprehensive solution to the increasingly acute problems faced by the people.
“He seems to be more focused on suppressing his political rivals than solving the people’s issues.”
Muhyiddin went on to lament about the increase in several taxes which he said are set to impact Malaysians’ wallets, including the 2% hike in the sales and services tax (SST) to 8%, a new luxury tax of 5% to 10%, and a 10% sales tax on low-value goods costing RM500 and below sold online.
“The government being proud of the decreasing inflation rate is meaningless as the decline in inflation was due to weak consumer demand and Malaysians’ declining purchasing power,” he stressed.
“Furthermore, the government is also ignoring the numerous complaints from the people about the persistent shortage of local rice in the market. Based on my observation in several locations I found that the people are still struggling to find local rice despite the fact that 70% of the rice supply in stores should be local.” – Jan 24, 2024
Main pic credit: Kosmo Digital
