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!