1MDB survives due to your sacrifices

Connect the dots and you will realize that the GST, the fuel hikes etc. are not unrelated to the 1MDB saga

FMT LETTERS

By J. D. Lovrenciear

Malaysia is hogging media attention the world over for the wrong reasons – murders, kickbacks, mysterious money trails to the tune of billions of dollars while its leaders smile on camera saying “Semua okay” (Everything is fine) and others in their camp crow “Seronok” (Exciting and enjoyable).

All this while its’ citizens drift in financial and economic woes.

The much loved and hated ‘Iron Lady’ of Britain, Margaret Thatcher once declared “The state has no source of money other than money which people earn themselves. If the state wishes to spend more it can do so only by borrowing your savings or by taxing you more. It is no good thinking that someone else will pay – that ‘someone else’ is you.”

With that in mind we would do well to remember that Malaysia’s sovereign wealth creation vehicle, 1MDB, hangs on precariously on a lease taken out by a leadership hell-bent on saving it, a lease riding on the backs of ordinary citizens.The 1MDB lease is funded by you, – your tax dollars, fuel price hikes you grudgingly bear and the hard earned savings you place in financial institutions.

When you consider also that the Goods and Services Tax (GST) was imposed on the people of Malaysia despite numerous calls to consider other alternatives, you cannot help but connect the dots between the tax imposed on the man on the street and the massive borrowings, and spending the nation is faced with today. You cannot help but see Lady Thatcher’s argument at work in the predicament we find ourselves in.

What other sacrifices will the ordinary citizen be asked to bear?
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J. D. Lovrenciear is an FMT reader