GST advertisement contravenes Anti Fake News Act – Chong
KUCHING: Democratic Action Party (DAP) candidate for Stampin Chong Chieng Jen has alleged that the GST advertisement carried by major dailies yesterday contravened the Anti Fake News Act.
The DAP Sarawak chairman, who is a lawyer by profession, claimed that collection from GST (Goods and Services Tax) did not go to the various development projects and programmes as shown in the advertisement.
“GST money goes to consolidated fund and the consolidated fund is channelled to the budget as either development expenditure or operating expenditure, from there it goes to projects or government spending.
“It goes direct to the consolidated fund but does not go there (pointing at the advertising piece),” he said at a press conference held at the DAP headquarters here.
The GST advertisement stated ‘20% of the government’s revenue come from GST collection (2017: RM225.3 billion. GST collection: RM41.5 billion. GST (6%) replaced SST (10%+6%) in Apr 2015’.
Chong pointed out that “it is impossible for GST to do all these”, referring to the various development projects and programmes in the advertisement, arguing that if the annual GST collection was RM40 billion and the country’s total revenue was RM200 billion, the GST revenue constituted only 20 per cent of the total revenue.
He added that others that made up the total revenue were the income tax, corporate tax, tariffs, import duties and royalties.
Given this, he said the advertisement had contravened the Anti Fake News law which stipulated that any news report or even advertisement which consisted of partially wrong information was considered fake news.
As such, he said directors of the newspapers that carried the GST advertisement “are liable to pay RM200,000 in fine or five years imprisonment or both”, if convicted.
“That is the law, and that is why we (Pakatan Harapan - PH) say such Anti Fake News Act is an oppressive law,” he stressed.
He added that the PH coalition, if voted in to rule Putrajaya, will repeal the Act without hesitation.
When prompted for comments on Chief Minister Datuk Patinggi Abang Johari Tun Openg’s statement that Barisan Nasional (BN) remained confident of winning 28 out of the 31 parliamentary seats in the state, Chong said: “No need to respond lah. Let the voters respond.”