Khairy, Saifuddin cross swords on ‘GST robbery’
Umno man fires back after Pakatan secretary says government takes people’s money and then robs children of their future by cutting university budgets.
PETALING JAYA: Umno Youth leader Khairy Jamaluddin and Pakatan Harapan chief secretary Saifuddin Abdullah have crossed swords on Twitter about Goods and Services Tax and government spending.
Khairy questioned Saifuddin’s accusation that the government was robbing the people through GST, and robbing children of their future by cutting allocations to universities.
“Rob through GST? How is it robbing when tax collections are spent for the public?” he said, and Saifuddin had posted a Tweet, saying: “First, you rob the people’s money. Then you rob them again through GST. Now you rob their children’s future by cutting the universities’ budget,”
Khairy said there was more to spending for the public good than only focusing on one sector like higher education.
Barisan Nasional strategic communications director Abdul Rahman Dahlan also stepped in with his own comment, saying “That is the problem when one allows political gutterism to overwhelm decent intellectualism,” tagging both Khairy and Saifuddin.
When another Twitter user denied Khairy’s claim that the GST collections were being used for the public, Khairy tweeted: “Public education, healthcare, police, armed forces, federal roads, drains, etc. That’s all spending for the public, no?”
Stay current - Follow FMT on WhatsApp, Google news and Telegram
The total budget allocation for the operating expenditure of 20 universities is RM6.12 billion, a cut of RM1.46 billion or 19.23 per cent from this year’s allocation of RM7.57 billion.