IT is impossible for the Pakatan Harapan government to have spent RM18 billion meant for goods and services tax (GST) refunds in three weeks, Finance Minister Lim Guan Eng said in a rebuttal to Najib Razak’s accusation against Putrajaya.
Instead, Najib, as the former prime minister and finance minister, should come clean on whether he had given order not to transfer money needed for the refunds to the GST refunds account.
“Can Najib prove his claim that the new PH government was able to spend RM18 billion in only three weeks, when Najib failed to return GST refunds by three years, what the law required to be refunded in 2 weeks?
“Just as Najib must come clean on (the 1Malaysia Development Berhad) scandals, he must also come clean on his role in the RM18 billion missing GST refunds scandal,” Lim said in a statement today.
Najib yesterday accused the government of using up the RM18 billion in “missing” GST refunds that Lim had revealed earlier this week.
The former prime minister said the PH government had probably used up the money since it had no revenue after zero-rating the GST from June 1.
But Lim pointed that out that Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad was sworn in on May 10 while he (Lim) only became finance minister on May 21 – too short a time for the new government to have spent the money.
Lim also referred to the Customs director-general Subromaniam Tholasy’s statement yesterday explaining why the department had asked the monthly trust fund committee for RM82.9 billion to be transferred to the GST Refund Trust account.
The transfer was meant to refund businesses for GST collected over a period of three years, but the full sum was not transferred, resulting in a shortfall of RM19.4 billion at the end of May.
Former Treasury secretary-general Mohd Irwan Serigar Abdullah, who was replaced by the new government, had chaired the monthly trust fund committee meetings.
Lim said Najib should explain whether he had instructed Irwan not to transfer the full sum into the trust account.
Lim said the law did not permit refunds to be delayed by more than two weeks and delays beyond the 14 days had to be on the order of the finance minister.
He said Irwan had also not been truthful by omitting to explain why the RM18 billion for refunds was not transferred to the trust account.
Lim said the new Treasury secretary-general Ismail Bakar was leading an internal inquiry into the missing funds.
“A proposal will be made to both the prime minister and cabinet to conduct an open an inquiry headed by independent professionals. The Ministry of Finance will also co-operate with any authority investigating the matter.” – August 11, 2018.
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