Yesterday, MCA wanita chief Heng Seai Kie lodged a report with the Election Commission and the police against PKR for adding a racial twist to her remarks on goods and services tax .
She alleged that a bill board put up in Pematang Pauh quoting her as saying that Malay pay more GST was an act of racialisng her comments on GST.
She also said that since Chinapress has already explained, clarified and apologized for misquoting her interview, it was absolutely unbecoming of the Opposition to twist and add salt and pepper to her comments.
However, unless Heng can satisfactorily explain two questions, she is guilty of “thief shouting thief “when she alleged that the opposition was racialising her comments.
Firstly, Chinapress has on April 30 published her interview titled “Heng Seai Kie: High income, fewer children, Chinese should not oppose GST (王赛芝: 收入高孩子少, 华裔最不該反对 GST).
Then on May 1, Chinapress apologised to her for misinterpreting her statements and carried a correction report titled “Heng Seai Kie: Everyone pays, GST is beneficial to Chinese community (王赛芝: 要全民買單, 消费税对华社有利)
In the correction report 1, it contained her following comments:-
1. GST is absolutely good for the Chinese community because it is a tax system where everyone pays. In the previous tax system, 90 % of the tax payers are Chinese, but GST is a policy where everyone pays and the government no longer places the taxpaying responsibility on the Chinese community only.
2. Chinese should not oppose GST because Chinese have the highest income in the nation, so previously, 90% of the nation’s tax revenue came from Chinese, now it is ‘a net for all”, so long one spends, one has to pay for goods consumed.
3. Chinese families have fewer children, compared to Malays, there will be less spending, naturally Chinese will pay less GST ( the term used here is友族which is clear reference to Malays .In her recorded interview, she has said Malays )
4. In Malaysia, anyone can oppose GST, but the Chinese have no reason whatsoever to oppose it because Chinese have fewer children, and when one spends less, one pays less GST.
So why till today Heng has not objected to this corrected report? Why has she been saying that Chinapress has clarified the wrong report when she knows the fact is Chinapress only apologoised for the April 30 report? The question of apology over the May 1 report does not arise. In fact, the May 1 report was a corrected report.
The first question is: can Heng therefore deny that she did not racialise GST is sue as reported in May 1 Chinapress report?
Secondly, a Malaysiakini report dated May 2 has reported that Heng has told Chinese in the country not to oppose the Goods and Services Tax (GST) as the system will see the Malays paying more.
The Malaysiakini report was based on a recording of her interview which emerged in Facebook after she has alleged that Chinapress has misquoted her.
When contacted by Malaysiakini on May 2, Heng said her comments were taken out of context and that Chinapress has retracted its report.
Again, she did not clarify that Chinapress only retracted the April 30 report.
The second question for Heng is: how her comments were taken out of context?
If Heng insists that she is not guilty of racialising GST issue, I challenge her to call a press conference and distribute the full transcript of her recorded interview in Bahasa Malaysia, English and Tamil. Let the media judge if she has been misquoted or that her words have been taken out of context.
Teresa Kok
