KUALA LUMPUR, June 14- Datuk Ahmad Maslan’s repeated attempts to convince Malaysians over the Goods and Services Tax (GST) has again found scorn and ridicule online, with Malaysians deriding him over a picture the Deputy Finance Minister had posted of himself cooking fried rice.
Sesekali sedia sarapan utk keluarga. Nasi goreng campur resepi tiada GST. Hidang terus. Lepas masak ini ada prgm UMNO pic.twitter.com/nMACQJQSmB
— Ahmad Maslan (@ahmadmaslan) June 14, 2015In a Twitter post today, the Umno information chief posted a picture of himself preparing a simple meal of fried rice for his family – which he declared was GST-free.
“Once in a while I prepare a meal for the family. Mixed fried rice with a GST-free recipe. Served as it is. After cooking I have an Umno programme (Sesekali sedia sarapan utk keluarga. Nasi goreng campur resepi tiada GST. Hidang terus. Lepas masak ini ada prgm UMNO),” Ahmad said in a posting accompanying the picture on Twitter.
The Umno man’s Twitter posting has since gone viral, with over 2,230 retweets and hundreds of mostly negative comments from Twitter users at the time of writing.
Many Twitter users questioned why the wok in which Ahmad has prepared his fried rice was decorated with cucumbers, as well as the placement of what appears to be a Ridsect aerosol on the kitchen stove.
“Salam Dato why did you decorate the wok as well? Eating straight from the wok?” Twitter user @NabyllahZin asked the deputy minister.
“Salam tuan why is there ridsect next to the food? To be used to spray those who do not have nice things to say?” another user @fabulistjiwa asked.
“Its for him (Ahmad) to spray in the fried rice as a replacement for ajinamoto. What do you know, you’ve never cooked fried rice without GST,” Twitter user @fareezakmal said in a sarcastic reply to @fabulistjiwa.
Earlier this month, Ahmad took to Twitter and laid out a recipe for fried rice using ingredients that were not subject to the new consumption tax.
“My recipe and cooked myself: Vegetables, egg, chillies, rice, salt, meat, onions, chicken, oil, and cooking gas. No GST!” he wrote in a post accompanied by photographs of his culinary and tax-free exploits.
The response from Malaysians back then was predictably negative, with some doubting that the items were exempt from the GST as he stated.
Ahmad previously proclaimed himself the “most hated person in Malaysia” owing to his repeated statements on the GST.
The Umno information chief has been at the forefront of disseminating information about the new tax system but had been heavily criticised for some of the comments he had made, including telling university students to cook at home to avoid being burdened by GST.
He had also accused traders who did not lower prices appropriately after the GST replaced the Sales and Service Tax of being pro-opposition, and urged a boycott against them.
