Wednesday, February 13, 2013

KEDAH STATE GOVERNMENT BANKRUPT? Or Just Run Out Of Logging Money?

A friend of mine who has become a rather prominent NGO activist in Kedah over the last few years (winnable candidate! Hahaha!), Shaharol Niza Omar, posted something troubling and a pathetically funny on his Facebook page yesterday. The original post is quoted below:

LUCU, SEDIH atau TAK MASUK AKAL???


Baru hubungi sebuah agensi kerajaan Negeri Kedah utk site visit. Jwpnnya "kami tak dpt keluar kerana minyak kenderaan telah dibekukan seluruh negeri sehingga diberitahu kelak".

Tahukah kerajaan negeri dgn membekukan minyak kenderaan telah membantutkan urusan dan blh akibatkan kerugian masa dan wang ringgit serta pembangunan???

Zulkifli Yahaya tlg siasat perkara ini. Ini bkn fitnah tp saya sendiri yg hubungi jabatan terbabit.
Much to his surprise, Zulkifli Yahaya, who is part of PAS Kedah's Information team and is the so called Chief PAS Blogger for the state (got such thing meh? chief blogger?), replied rather honestly, but then proceeded to try to cover for his earlier 'slip-up' as captured below:

Of course there is much covering up and counter-spinning going on now. It is indeed as Shahrarol noted, tough to decide on whether this is funny, sad or does not make sense! For a state government agency to have its fuel budget frozen early in the year? IS THE STATE OF KEDAH NEARING FINANCIAL BANKRUPTCY? Or has it just run out of logging money.
I then read the following report in the NST, where Kedah MB, DS Azizan Abdul Razak is said to be "ADAMANT (!!) on RM100m to spare trees" - the RM100 Million being from the BN led Federal Government of course. He seems intent on topping his Chief Blogger in intimately linking state finances to logging! He is quoted as saying: 
Stop all the noise. I am asking the Federal Government RM100 million every year to spare the forest. Pay us and we stop the land clearing work.
and...

The forests belong to the state. There are quarters who were worried that water supply in Penang would be affected when we log timber here. So, we can't cut trees because of Penang and at the same they are getting water free from our rivers.
So, he can link the logging to the threat of cutting water supplies to Penang. He can even make mention of how the water is going to Penang for free. HELLO?! Go and ask Penang la to pay Kedah RM100 Million a year for not cutting trees and continuing to supply Kedah water to fuel its Semi-Conductor and other industries!
 
Kata partners in Pakatan Rakyat. If partners, Pakat-Pakat la for the good of your economies. Neighbours what! Why la like this. How to run a state if the only way you know to fund your state coffers is by selling balak or threatening the Federal government! If Kedah goes bankrupt because of the PAS government is this incompetent... malulah!

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

100m to spare the forests? What and which "forests" ni? Habih balah dah dia tebang nak selamatkan apa lagi? Oghang tua ni walaupun garang memang dah nyanyok nampaknya.

AYAH

Anonymous said...

Ours is a Federal System of government where only Putrajaya has the rights to collect taxes. It is the duty of the Federal Government to ensure that the State Government does not go bankrupt.

Anonymous said...

Ours is a Federal System of government where only Putrajaya has the rights to collect taxes. It is the duty of the Federal Government to ensure that the State Government does not go bankrupt.

Anonymous said...

ours is fed sys right. but c'mon. you're supposed to be the smart ones.

appoint another "pemandu" or "penasihat ekonomi". think out of the box, create new sources of income for the state.

faizu

X-man said...

Stupid Anon 5.52am . Who says only Federal government collect taxes? Quit rent (Cukai Tanah)go to state. Assessment rate (Cukai Pintu)goes to the respective local council (Majlis Daerah or Dewan Bandaran/Bandaraya).

Anonymous said...

More accurately, the size of federal revenues far outstrip state ones.

The federal government has had history in pulling funding out, namely in Sabah between 1990 to 1994, with devastating effects.

@faizu

If the feds can barely increase federal revenue at single-digit growth rates, what chance does the state government have of doing the same? 6% revenue growth of a very small revenue stream is still a small amount.

So long as the Constitution reserves as few powers as possible for state governments, expect the federal one to continue to hold the highly centralised levers of power.

Finally, other state governments have had fiscal issues themselves, but have been bailed out by the federal government over and over again. That this hasn't happened in Kedah is more a result of partisan witholding of funds than anything else.

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