Former Finance Minister blames drop in oil price and declining demand for other commodities.
GUA MUSANG: The ringgit’s decline is not due to the current political climate in the country, said former Finance Minister Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah.
According to a report by Astro Awani, the Gua Musang MP, better known as Ku Li, said other factors were responsible for the ringgit’s drop and that these included the decline in the price of crude oil and the demand for other commodities.
The ringgit, currently trading at 3.98 for a US dollar, has hit its lowest value in 17 years.
Ku Li said the government was now forced to cut on subsidies given the decline in the exports of palm oil, rubber and other commodities.
He lamented that Malaysians were forced to bear the burden of a higher cost of living.
“The Goods and Services Tax (GST) is an opportunity for the government to collect funds to pay debts and other expenditures,” Astro Awani quoted him as saying in a speech at a school in Gua Musang.
Finance Minister II Ahmad Husni Hanadzlah recently announced that the government had no plans to peg the ringgit to the greenback, saying it expected the local currency to stabilise on foreign exchange markets as Malaysia’s economic fundamentals remained strong.
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