Petrol hike madness!

..the petrol price news dominated some of my friends' Yahoo status on the day Pak Lah announced the sharp petrol increase

Many have commented, blogged and analysed this issue and my first reaction was - unbelievable. I was expecting the increase to be in August and was so shocked when I first read the news online and saw the 'RM2.70' on the headline. I sat in disbelief, thinking hard how could Pak Lah made such an unpopular decision? Especially after the humiliating election results for Barisan Nasional. It's like a political suicide. Dear Mr. Prime Minister, please remember that 'angry' and 'hungry' citizens are able to overthrow the government. I'm not an economist, but I think the government now has got no choice but to be more transparent in this issue by providing details of the subsidy money; i.e. where it goes to, how it is being spend, etc etc, as it would be meaningless to the rakyat if the so-called subsidy money which is suppose to subsidize the petrol price, is being wasted on unnecessary projects, 'corridors' or whatnot.

My main worry now is the domino effect of the petrol price increase. Prices of goods, rice, transportations etc, have all gone up and will definitely go up even further, no doubt about it. Even my nasi lemak this morning costs me extra 20 sen! Makin tak sedap pulak tu.

Pak Lah has again successfully proved that he is indeed a flip flop Prime Minister - first was the ban on sale of petrol to foreign-registered vehicles reported on 28th May (TheStar: Fuel ruling won't hurt Johor), and then the next few days, he lifted up the petrol ban (Foreign car fuel ban off). It really looks as if the decision was made in a haste without proper study. This kind of situation has never happened before in previous administration. For the record, one of the early known case of Pak Lah's flip flop was the decision to stop building the infamous crooked bridge in Johor.

Former Prime Minister, Tun Dr. Mahathir too has written a long piece of entry on the petrol price issue in his blog. While acknowledging the increase of petrol price in global market by 400% in the past three years, Tun said that, the increase should be made gradually so as not to burden the people.

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