THE Council of Eminent Persons, formed in 2018 by the Pakatan Harapan (PH) government led by Dr Mahathir Mohamad, did not produce a report, Free Malaysia Today reports.

Economist Jomo Kwame Sundaram was quoted as saying there was no collaboration on such a report.

“A report was prepared by the secretariat under former finance minister Daim Zainuddin. But there was no report on the entire CEP,” he said at a talk organised by the Oxford and Cambridge Society of Malaysia.

Aside from Jomo and Daim, the CEP is made up of former Bank Negara governor Zeti Akhtar Aziz, former Petronas president and chief executive officer Hassan Marican and corporate tycoon Robert Kuok.

The news portal also reported Jomo as saying that his efforts to push for reforms, especially on the Goods and Services Tax (GST), were futile.

“Instead of abolishing GST, I suggested an integrated tax authority, rather than a segmented one. The head of customs was very open to these suggested reforms.

“Unfortunately, the finance minister at that time and perhaps the prime minister never considered these reforms, to my knowledge. And so, there were no discussions on this,” he said.

Jomo also expressed his disappointment in the government’s lack of commitment to raise funds for healthcare reforms. 

He cited the intent of the then health minister Khairy Jamaluddin to increase government spending for health to 5% instead of the promised 4% by PH.

“As we know nothing happened. It was not reflected in the budget before parliament was dissolved last November,” he said.

On the targeted withdrawals from the Employees’ Provident Fund, Jomo had this to say:

“The Umno leadership and others have basically been pushing very hard for some years now, to allow people to take out as much money as possible from EPF.

“I feel that old people would have very little choice but to continue to work as long as they can.

“It may not necessarily be a bad thing for us to have a longer working life, but considering the poor health that everyone appears to be in, I am really concerned,” he added. – March 28, 2023.