A SARAWAK minister today said the Inland Revenue Board’s letters of demand which he and leaders of the state’s ruling Gabungan Parti Sarawak (GPS) had received was just one of the tactics the Pakatan Harapan federal government employed to harass the state coalition leaders.

“Many of us have already received these notices,” state Tourism, Art, Culture, Youth and Sports Minister Abdul Karim Hamzah said.

He declined to go into details on what the notice to him conveyed because “ taxes are a personal matter”.

Sources told The Malaysian Insight the IRB has been asking the GPS leaders to furnish their tax filings for the last 12 years.

The Asajaya assemblyman was dismissive of the notice, calling it an “occupational hazard”.

“I have made my (tax) deductions since I was assistant minister but of course, sometimes, ‘tertinggal’ (accidentally omitted some things) here and there.

“When you are in this kind of line, you are prepared for it.

“I am addressing it, should not be a problem. I am not someone who doesn’t pay tax. I have been paying tax from since I was sworn in.”

Karim’s first appointment was assistant minister for housing and youth development in 2011.

Karim said harassment started soon after the Pakatan Harapan came to power last year.

He said the Pakatan Harapan federal government “going after GPS leaders was one way to destabilise the state government”.

Earlier when speaking to reporters on the controversial plan of the federal government to set up its own village management committees (MPKKP), Karim said the plan was another tactic to destabilise the state government at the grassroots level.

“It is to do nothing but to destabilise the state,” Karim said of the MPKKP that Putrajaya wants set up to rival the state’s village security and development committees (JKKK).

“Every government in the world, every politician (in the world) will always advocate for unity.

“No politician in the world will try to divide their own country. I only see it here.”

Why would the PH federal government set up a rival system when there is already a system, he said.

Karim said PH was doing it because it knew GPS was strong in the rural areas and wished to break that strength.

Karim said a rival committee would split the community and and make them fight among themselves.

He said the MPKKP was a tool the PH is employing to win the coming state elections at the expense of unity. – November 7, 2019.