Before I start writing about budget, let me explain a bit about my travel to France. Again, my departure was postponed to God knows when :-)) I was informed that French immigration finally approved our visa, however a new regulation that needed a minister approval was imposed..Therefore, they said the process could take 1 day to 3 weeks..hahaha...so, I guess nothing can be done at this stage.
Since all my course works were completed, I took 1 week off this week. Finally, I managed to do lots of things including pay various bills, zakat, repair my car, arrange necessary financial thingy etc..quite a hectic week I would say.
Today, I allocate some time to watch PM table the budget. On the bright side, I appreciate the bonus for civil servant. Also, I quite like the idea of energy plan e.g less than RM20 bill do not have to pay for bill (although my bill normally RM70++), tax reduction for hybrid car etc. I also like the idea of various incentives to farmers and low income people, various tax exemptions for ordinary people like us e.g. interest from saving, telephone and internet bills etc.
However, I have serious doubt on certain issues. This is my personal opinion-rakyat marhaen with science and engineering background. Large amount of money was allocated for Sabah and Sarawak-why?? Pressure to remain in power? Large amount of money for public transport improvement e.g Rapid KL and Rapid Penang-who will benefit from this? (clue-check shareholder of this company :-D). Also, large amount of money to buy new buses, who will benefit from this??
-read here. hehehe..Malaysian are just too dumb to realize about this...
Either we realise or not, the budget was only described about how to spend the money..However, the only income I can see was from increment of cigarette price from 5 cents to 3 cents- is it enough to support the whole plan? I would like to see more on how government are going to generate income, how are they going to get more fund. My analogy, I need to buy this and that but I'm not sure if I can have the money to materialize my plan..sound ridiculous??? :-)
I also nearly laugh to dead when I heard the opening and closing...let me re-phrase for those did not have a chance to watch it today.
Opening-
"Semangat setia kawan yang ikhlas teruji ketika kita menghadapi kesukaran dan kesusahan. Kawan di masa senang memang ramai, tetapi kawan sejati yang setia dan sanggup bersama di masa susah tidak mudah dicari"...My friend suggested he actually described his situation )
Closing-
"Saya ingin menegaskan bahawa kerajaan BN yang diberi mandat oleh rakyat pada Mac lalu akan terus memelihara kestabilan politik dan meningkatkan kemakmuran ekonomi negara. Usaha pihak tertentu yang cuba menggugat kestabilan ini, dengan merampas kuasa secara tidak sah tanpa mandat majoriti rakyat, perlu ditolak. Kita tidak boleh membenarkan ketidakpastian yang timbul untuk berterusan. Sedikit sebanyak ia akan memberi kesan negatif kepada pelabur asing, sentimen ekonomi dan juga pasaran modal. Saya tidak akan membenarkan gangguan ini diteruskan. Saya tidak akan membenarkan mandat rakyat dirampas daripada BN yang telah menang majoriti pilihan raya umum secara sah dan mengikut lunas demokrasi. Saya yakin rakyat akan terus memberi sokongan kepada kerajaan BN untuk melaksanakan tugas mentadbir negara. We need to get on with the business of governing and not waste any more time with opportunistic threats to seize the people's mandate through undemocratic means, dengan izin"Probably those sentences didnot have impact on you, but believe me if you listen to how he actually said it, then you will understand why I said so...what's that supposed to mean?? Why did he say so?? What are the relation between the tabled budget and opposition?? For me, those remarks are just so NOT-PROFESSIONAL...or childish!
The whole 'teks ucapan' (in Malay) can be obtained
here
Enough said for now..
p/s: I thank Eli for being with me throughout the budget-even when I fell asleep..hahahaha
