Tuesday, March 26, 2024

Did Rafizi's team called PADU critics as "monyets"?


A month ago, social media took notice that Rafizi Ramli's spending to promote his responses to critics on social media were not getting the desired attention

In the previous weekend, came the frontpage bomb in Sunday Star. Just 14 days to go, 83% of Malaysians yet to register on PADU. The poor response was attributed to Malaysians suspicious nature, fears over data privacy and security.

In the same manner Rafizi call his critics as ignorant and naive as "mereka ini tidak tahu", he arrogantly gave thinly veiled threat in his reminder to register.  

When Ong Kian Meng first expressed concern with his system, he ignored the warning. Since then, more problems surface and discussed by social media commentors. Wee Ka Siong saw something fishy in the RM80 million spent. Puad Zarkashi join the berating to describe formula man as a failure. 

For the past few days, Sarawak Minister Karim Hamzah expressed reservation on the overly detailed personal information requested. Sabah DCM Jeffrey Kitingan called the approach taken as too assertive and coercive.  

Rafizi's people response was to call critics as monkeys!

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Explaining PADU to all the monyets

Why am I doing this?

Because the Madani government is shit at communicating and because there are so many ignorant posts about PADU on this sub. Also, because I feel this is a way to move the country forward.

Why does PADU need all this information from me?

The Government is planning to cut subsidies from certain groups of citizens. PADU's main purpose is to collect data from you to help give the government an idea of your lifestyle and if you are in need of subsidies. Providing subsidies based on income group (i.e. T20, M40, B40) would never be fair. A T20 earner could have a house loan, car loan, 3 kids, stay in Klang Valley, have his parents to take care of and drive 40KM to work (one-way). The point is to understand the expenses of a person along with their income to determine if they should receive a subsidy.

I will provide explanations as to why PADU has asked for specific information. Some examples:

Taraf Perkahwinan - JPN should know, but you could have been married overseas and not register it in MalaysiaStatus OKU - Apparently, they are not able to get the latest data for this. Latest data is only up to 2021Maklumat Bank - So they can do a direct cash transfer to you in the event you are eligible for subsidiesAlamat Kediaman - JPN would have this but everyone knows your MyKad address is probably outdatedMaklumat Isi Rumah - Who are your dependents. JPN would have this if you have children, but there are many out there (sandwich generation) that take care of their parents and JPN does not have this informationMaklumat Pekerjaan & Pendapatan Bulanan - See my other answer below. LHDN is not allowed to disclose.Maklumat Komitmen - They are not able to get this data en mass from banks and BNM due to the Financial Services Act and BAFIA. Hence you need to provide it.

I do admit that there are some weird questions that I cannot understand why they are being asked:

Pendidikan - I do not see how this is relevant at all.Jenis Kediaman Semasa - Doesn't mean if I live in a condo, my commitments are less than someone who lives in a bungalow.

Why does the government want to remove subsidies?

RM64 bil were spent on petrol subsidies in 2023. That figure is expected to rise. Subsidies are OPEX (operational expense) and hence the government is not allowed to borrow money to fund OPEX items. This means that petrol subsidies take away money from other government services (e.g. maintenance of public infrastructure like roads, hospitals, water pipes; and salaries of teachers and doctors). This also means Malaysia cannot spend this money on CAPEX (capital expense) items that will grow the economy. Basically, we are running out of money and need to either increase the tax base, or reduce spending.

You cannot remove petrol subsidies for the M40 and B40, so they are targeting the T20. But even then (per my previous explanations) they also cannot have some T20 with a lot of commitments be left behind.

I am M40 hence I will not be eligible for petrol subsidies.

Not sure why all the M40s are very perasan and have this view. Nowhere have I read that M40s will be excluded. It is always about removal of subsidies from the T20. I mean, the government will have to be fucking stupid to exclude the M40 and potentially lose that voter base at the next election.

What happens if I do not fill up my PADU?

If you are B40 and M40, honestly, I do not think anything will happen. You still will be eligible for petrol subsidies. However, since they are asking for 'Maklumat Bank' I am not sure how they are going to do the cash transfer to you if you do not fill it in.

If you are T20 (and especially if you are lower T20), you will likely not get your subsidy even though you deserve it.

I already file my income taxes to LHDN. Why don't they get this data from LHDN?

LHDN only records your income. Not your expenses. PADU is largely there to record your expenses to figure out your lifestyle and if you need subsidies. Any expenses that you fill in your Borang BE are only for those that are tax deductible.Not everyone files their income tax. According to this article, only 1.3mil Malaysians even pay income tax. Source: https://www.nst.com.my/business/2023/02/882012/inculcating-culture-paying-taxes-malaysiansLHDN is technically not allowed to share any information in regards to taxes unless to be used in court. This is the in the Income Tax Act 1967. Source: https://thesun.my/business/tax-matters-information-given-to-irb-may-be-shared-with-customs-from-2024-ED11655670

They have all my data already from other sources like JPN, JPJ, etc. Why can't they use that?

They can and they are. The point is to allow people to update and correct their data if it is wrong. If you do not update PADU and complain about not getting subsidies, you cannot say that the government did not ask you for your latest data. Also per my explainations above, some data is not available to JPN.

I am a T20 and I am the same as every other citizen. Why is the government unfairly treating me?

Because you should be able to afford it. Grow up. Everyone wants a socialist state until the point it stops benefiting them.

If you feel you cannot afford it because you have a lot of commitments (e.g. lower-end T20), maybe you should complete & submit your PADU.

This is a way to tax people more. Through PADU they can find out if you are evading tax or find more ways to tax you.

The questions in PADU are based on your own personal disclosure. If you choose not to share (either by omitting data or reporting wrong data) they would not know. Same as your income tax filing, they would not know unless they run an audit on you. Granted there are questions about income on PADU. But if you were evading tax and not reporting your actual income already, then why would you even choose to correctly state your income on PADU. The main purpose is to capture your expenses.

I know for a fact PADU is not the tool to do find tax evaders because there is another initiative by LHDN called e-invoicing which is meant to do that.

The government will be able to control us with the data they have in PADU.

Please STFU and stop spreading conspiracy theories. Please explain to me how this is even possible.

The government is not transparent on how PADU actually works.

Firstly, PADU doesn't work anything. It's a data collection and repository. The 'formula' that will be used to determine subsidies is not PADU.

Secondly, I cannot speak on its inner workings of that formula and how 'correct' it will be because I do not know. But honestly it is not hard to imagine how it works based on all the questions asked in PADU. Just use some critical thinking. But also being the government, I wouldn't want too forthcoming with this information as then people will start to game the targeted subsidy system.

PADU is not covered under PDPA

Fair comment. But just so everyone knows, the government has always been exempted from PDPA since the inception of that law. In fact, the government is exempt from many of its own laws.

Source: Section 3 of the Personal Data Protection Act 2010

If PADU is not covered under the PDPA means it is not secure

Not necessarily true. PDPA is legislation that regulates the sharing of personal data. It neither indicates if your data is secure/unsecure. A company bound by the PDPA could very well have terrible IT security and leaked all your data; and opposingly, the government which is not bound by PDPA could have excellent IT security have have done the necessary penetration testing to ensure your data is secure. Put aside that most of your data has already been leaked by the telcos.

So, is PADU safe and secure?

I do not know, and no one except those closest to PADU will know. The government is not transparent about this. According to Rafizi, it has been penetration tested. But to be fair to the government, it is not wise to boast about how secure your system is in public. It only emboldens hackers as they will take it as a challenge. There have been no reported hacks of PADU so far. Government could be keeping hush if there were, but neither have any hacker groups put out statements saying they have compromised PADU.

But I have read news PADU has been hacked.

My understanding is that in the early days of PADU (January 2024) one user could sign-up on behalf of many other users if they knew their MyKad number. Some pre-filled information would be visible, and you could also then "help" fill up someone else’s data. However, you are not able to commit that new information to PADU because you would not be able to do the e-KYC. This was a very big oversight from the government. As far as I know, this has not been brought up again which either means it has been patched, or it is not as big security risk as it was originally made out to be.

There was news that a different PADU (Unit Pengurusan Penyampaian Perkhidmatan) was hacked, not PADU (Pangkalan Data Utama). Source: https://soyacincau.com/2024/02/19/r00tk1t-hacked-padu-lppkn/

The government today might be good and not misuse the data. But how can we be sure the next government will do the same?

We cannot. But if we want to fix a problem (i.e. the economy) we need to take a chance.

You are a PH and Rafizi supporter.

Check my post history over the years. I am extremely objective on all topics. I am highly critical of PH. I do not care for political personalities. They work for me. I am not even sure why we put them on a pedestal and call them YB.

TLDR. Signing up to PADU is ultimately your decision. The government is trying is best to right some wrongs. If you care about your data security, I get why you might not want to sign-up for PADU. But if you do not, do not complain if you do not get the subsidies you deserve. Looking at petrol prices around the world, I think many will eventually sign-up to PADU once the subsidies are removed. People will not take it so lightly anymore. You have one week to make an informed decision.


Pmarkandu can deny, but the detailing can be passed off as a narrative provided by PADU. And he is possibly a member of Rafizi's comm's team. Meanwhile, Anwar made a statement to direct Rafizi to explain to the cabinet

Some commentors saw it as Anwar throwing Rafizi under the bus.  

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Rafizi & the mahaldahni gov didn't even bother to tell us how they plan to rationalise the fuel subsidy, ie cash transfer, check ic, etc. They want us to trust them implicitly & totally. Such hypocrites, every single one of them esp dap ministers & leaders!

Had it been a non-mahaldahni gov that did this, the internet, tik tok, etc would be filled with all sorts of jinggles, hue & cries deriding the scheme. ABCGST anyone??

Anonymous said...

Stupid government