Malaysia Government Spending RM1.66m for GST Briefings (April 2014)
While
no exact dates or locations were specified for the 166 Peninsular
Malaysian parliamentary constituencies, Deputy Finance Minister Datuk
Ahmad Maslan said each speaker would conduct four briefings in four
separate locations within each constituency.
In the week of the 21st of April 2014, Malaysians were greeted with
news in the media that the government (probably via the Finance Ministry
and Customs Department) will be providing Goods and Services Tax (GST)
training to the Malaysian public. This will be done via briefings on the
GST in April-June 2014 ahead of it's implementation in Malaysia on 1
April 2015.
GST Briefings: RM1.66m for 664 Briefings?
The figure reported by most media outlets in the country is that a
total of RM1.66m will be spent in 166 parliamentary constituencies in
Peninsular Malaysia (with dates for Sabah and Sarawak to be announced at
a later date). A total of 330 speakers on GST are purported to be
trained.
"Each constituency will be allocated RM10,000 by the Finance Ministry
as each session will cost RM2,500," he told reporters after a GST
briefing at the Temerloh Umno branch here Sunday.
"The facilitators will be equipped with relevant material such as
documents and pen drives with graphs and information for multimedia
presentations so that people can understand it easily."
"The GST briefings will start this week and be completed in two
months. We will set another date for Sabah and Sarawak," he said, adding
that the public's understanding of the matter was still poor at below
50 percent.
Sources: Bernama, The Malaysian Insider
Doing the Numbers
The RM10,000 per constituency and 166 constituencies involved is
probably where most news portals get their RM1.66m figure from. For avid
followers of Malaysian news, the figures reported on 21 April 2014
compares closely with those reported in 16 December 2013 where 620
briefings (664 if you count 4x each constituency) were planned for 2014.
From these numbers, and doing some simple arithmetic, its quite
likely that either each speaker will probably be only doing 2 briefings
throughout the 2 month period (!), as 664 briefings divides closely into
330 speakers, either that or that there will be more than 1 speaker per
briefing.
Of course, here at SaveMoney.my we've done extensive research and
coverage of the GST in Malaysia, you can read all about it, and ask any
questions (we promise we didn't use RM1.66m to do it) in the GST in Malaysia guide.
If you're super keen to attend these government briefings in person,
to give you an idea of what's being covered (and so you can compare with
the material we provide at SaveMoney), we did a little digging, and
found some snapshots of what look to be materials used in these GST
briefings.
Goverment GST Briefing Snapshots (Source: Datuk Ahmad Maslan's Facebook page)
What do you think about this new development about GST? Have you
attended one of these government GST briefings? Do share with us your
experiences and we will update the SaveMoney Community with your
thoughts!
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