Batu Pahat (The Star/ANN) - Pakatan Rakyat, the opposition political coalition in Malaysia, is deceiving the people with its version of the 2013 opposition, Malaysian Chinese Association (MCA) president Dr Chua Soi Lek said yesterday.
He said the Opposition budget only spelt out the expenditure without explaining how they would boost national income.
"The Pakatan Budget should only be seen as a populist policy to get votes. They talk about giving but they never spell out their sources of revenue or how to quantify the amount," he said after launching a singing contest organised by Batu Pahat MCA here on Saturday.
Dr Chua said that among the puzzling issues with the Pakatan "shadow budget" was their provision for pension and gratuity for 2013 of 12 billion ringgit (US$3.91 billion).
That amount, he said, is the same as this year's amount, although the number of pensioners is actually increasing annually.
"The Pakatan are either incompetent or they are trying to hoodwink the people," he added.
Dr Chua said Pakatan also proposed to have a minimum wage of 1,110 ringgit without looking into the consequences and impact to the economy.
"Their main idea is to curry favour workers and civil servants without understanding the implications on the costs of production.
"It will drive the small traders and small and medium industry players to bankruptcy and cause inflation.
"The Pakatan has also failed to provide particulars on how it will keep the country's economic growth which it has estimated at 5.2 per cent," he added.
On the Opposition's plan to build 10,000 affordable houses, Dr Chua said that when they won Selangor and Penang in the 2008 general election, they did not build low-cost houses from that year until early last year.
"They are only beginning to build them now because of the looming general election," he added.
He also urged Penang Chief Minister Lim Guan Eng to reflect on his own actions when he criticised MCA for not doing enough for Chinese education.
"I ask the Chief Minister to list out the Chinese education promises in the Buku Jingga if he is sincere in helping to improve Chinese education," Dr Chua said.
*US$1=3.07 ringgit
