ANWAR TICKS OFF NAJIB: Stop the 11MP grand talk, resolve 1MDB, GST first

KUALA LUMPUR - Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim told Putrajaya today to first resolve the financial mismanagement of the debt-laden 1 Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB) and the rising cost of living resulting from the Goods and Services Tax (GST) before pushing the 11th Malaysia Plan (11MP).

The husband of parliamentary opposition leader Datuk Seri Dr Wan Azizah Wan Ismail said Datuk Seri Najib Razak must explain the two issues to the people, after the prime minister tabled in Parliament this morning the government’s five-year plan that aims to turn Malaysia into a developed nation by 2020.

“Our focus now must be towards fighting for the rights of the people by protesting against the rising cost of goods, especially because of the implementation of the GST that is making the poor suffer,” Pakatan Rakyat (PR) de facto chief Anwar said in a statement, as related by his daughter Nurul Izzah Anwar.

“The leakages and losses as a result of 1MDB’s poor management and mismanagement must be resolved immediately,” added the PKR de facto leader who is currently serving a five-year jail sentence for sodomy.

Putrajaya plans to grow the economy by five to six per cent annually, according to the 11MP.

Gross national income per capita is also targeted to hit US$15,000 (RM54,100) by 2020.

Anwar Ibrahim

Putrajaya at the same time plans to reduce the Malaysian government’s debt-to-GDP ratio to 45 per cent by 2020 and aims to achieve a balanced fiscal position in five years’ time, even as the Najib administration has revised the budget deficit target to 3.2 per cent of the GDP for this year due to the plunge in global oil prices.

Najib has been under pressure in recent weeks over his perceived poor handling of the 1MDB fiasco, with his predecessor Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad openly calling for the former’s resignation.

In a video shot about a week ago and posted on a blog called APANAMA, Deputy Prime Minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin said the Barisan Nasional federal government must sack every board member of 1MDB, or risk being booted out of Putrajaya come the next national polls.

He said he could not fathom how the state-owned investment fund, which is RM42 billion in debt, managed to rack up such a huge debt pile in a short span of time. - Malay Mail