Apr 8, 2013Pakatan Rakyat leaders are seeing red over the liberal use of their ideas in the BN manifesto unveiled last night.
According to PAS secretary-general Mustafa Ali, PAS has identified at nine issues in which BN had borrowed from the Pakatan manifesto published in February.
He told a press conference today that the wordings may be different, but ideas were essentially the same.
Among others, Mustafa pointed out that BN’s promise to review the national automative policy to gradually reduce car prices by between 20 to 30 percent, was not original.
Pakatan had promised to gradually remove car excise duties with the intention to totally remove the tax in order to have a competitive automotive industry.
On BN’s promise of 20 percent special payments for oil producing states, Mustafa said that this was again similar.
Pakatan had promised in their manifesto to increase oil royalty payments from 5 percent currently, to 20 percent.
“These are just a few examples of how several of our ideas appeared in the BN manifesto. It is not a coincidence, but it is plagiarism,” he said.
PKR: No real reforms from BN
Meanwhile, PKR vice-president Nurul Izzah Anwar said the BN manifesto pales in comparisan to Pakatan’s in terms of outlining proper reforms.
“This is plagiarism in its clear definition. Their manifesto is populist, but misses out on the more important points, which are fundamental reforms,” she said after a free health screening event in Pantai Dalam.
In comparison, Nurul Izzah said Pakatan had properly outlined how it will eradicate corruption and break monopolies.
“Our manifesto is about curbing the problems at the very cause,” she said.
The BN manifesto had stated that more courts would be established specifically to hear more graft cases.
What about GST?
She pointed out that the manifesto had left out any mention of the Goods and Services Tax (GST) which is expected to be implemented after the general election.
“They should have made the announcement in the manifesto. We know they plan to implement the GST, but where is the GST in the manifesto?” she asked.
She said that the GST has already been tabled in the Parliament and that the MPs come across the Bill before.
“It has always been on the top of a stack of Bills but it was never debated. BN should be clear in their intentions with regards to the GST,” she said.
