Yong: Lower prices for 22 items out of 30 surveyed after SST
KUCHING: The implementation of sales and services tax (SST) has brought down the prices of many goods.
According to Pending assemblywoman Violet Yong, a recent survey on prices of goods carried out by the Ministry of Domestic Trade and Consumers Affair in five hypermarkets here showed there were reduction in the price of several items subjected to SST.
She noted that out of 30 items surveyed, the price of at least 22 items had actually gone down quite substantially while the price of the other items increased slightly or remained status quo.
“To say that the price of necessities is going up under the SST compared with goods and services tax (GST) is a baseless allegation,” she told a press conference at Sarawak DAP headquarters here yesterday.
She said this to rebut the statement made by Assistant Minister of Law, State-Federal Relations and Project Monitoring Sharifah Hasidah Sayeed Aman Ghazali, who was reported on Wednesday saying that the prices of rice, school shoes, facial cream and many other goods have gone up even after the Pakatan Harapan (PH) government did away with GST.
Yong urged Hasidah to go the supermarket herself to personally understand the price of goods and not parrot what people have said or ‘follow the herd’.
“She should personally go and study the price of goods in the supermarkets, otherwise it only shows that she has actually lost touch with what’s on the ground.
“Based on the outcome of the Ministry’s survey that I have with me, it is quite obvious that Hasidah just do not wish to accept the fact that the price of the majority of goods had gone down.”
Yong concurred that there were certain merchants who marked up their price of goods on the high side.
She called on consumers to exercise their rights to not patronise these supermarkets or shops that sell goods at higher prices.
She believed that generally, prices of goods under the SST were lower than under GST previously.
She reiterated that under the SST, some 5,000 goods are being exempted from tax compared to only about 500 items exempted from tax under the GST.