SHAH ALAM (Feb 20): CCM Duopharma Biotech Bhd (CCMD) is hopeful of getting its RM10 million goods and services tax (GST) refund from the government within this year.

"We are in the process [of getting the refund]. There are still questions that need to be addressed with the Ministry of Finance (MoF), but we are quite happy with the announcement about the refund. Hopefully, it will be refunded within this financial year," CCMD group managing director Leonard Ariff Abdul Shatar told the press at its extraordinary general meeting (EGM) here.

Last August, Leonard Ariff told The Edge Financial Daily that the government still owed CCMD about RM10 million in GST refunds.

On Aug 13, Finance Minister Lim Guan Eng said the actual shortfall in the GST refund trust account since 2015 is actually bigger at RM19.248 billion compared with RM17.911 billion, because the previous federal government failed to transfer the sum to the GST Refunds Trust Account.

In September, Lim had given the assurance that companies would receive their GST refunds although some RM19 billion have gone missing from the GST Refunds Trust Account.

Under the GST Act 2014, the refunds of input tax should be made within 14 days. However, the refunds have seen delays up to 30 days or more.

The Pakatan Harapan government had abolished GST on June 1, 2018, as promised in its manifesto during the 14th general election.

It then implemented the sales and service tax on Sept 1, 2018.

In the morning session today, shares in CCMD rose two sen or 1.8% to RM1.13, giving it a market capitalisation of RM754.54 million.