Thursday, June 5, 2008

KUALA LUMPUR: Petrol stations nationwide never had it so good.

Source: http://www.nst.com.my/Current_News/NST/Thursday/Frontpage/20080605080949/Article/index_html

There was a mad rush at almost all kiosks as motorists tried to beat the midnight deadline when the new petrol and diesel prices came into effect.

No untoward incidents were reported but voices were raised at several petrol stations in the Klang Valley which suffered temporary power outage due to the heavy thunderstorm yesterday evening.

There were complaints that several petrol station operators had closed for the day after the new prices were announced.

Retired teacher Kaniappan Kaniah was one of the irate motorists who complained that a “rosak” sign was placed on all 10 pumps at a petrol station in Shah Alam last night.
Kaniappan, 62, was on the way to teach a self-defence class in the city and had to fill petrol as his tank was nearly empty.

The retiree from Shah Alam claimed that the petrol station had, during the previous petrol price revision, put the “rosak” sign a few hours before the new petrol price took effect.

“I am quite sure that after midnight, the ‘rosak’ sign will be gone,” he said yesterday.

He left this particular petrol station and went to other kiosks nearby only to find them packed with vehicles.

Fed up, Kaniappan went back home and phoned his student to pick him up.

In Johor Baru, it was no different from anywhere else in Malaysia as motorists made a beeline for petrol stations to fill up yesterday before the fuel price increase.

But if people thought the vehicles would include Singapore-registered ones, they were proven wrong.

Checks showed most of the cars at petrol stations bore Malaysian registration plates.

The rush was such that some petrol station owners went to the extent of rationing the amount of petrol for each vehicle to ensure that everybody got their fair share.

Mohd Khairul Mohd Duan, who operates a Petronas station in Bandar Baru Uda, said Singaporeans would not be too affected by the hike.

“Singaporeans won’t mind paying the higher price. I’ve spoken to them and they tell me that even if fuel prices reach market level, they don’t mind paying because it’s still cheap for them.

“But how are Malaysians going to survive?”

Khairul said station operators like him “gain nothing” from the price increase.

“The result of this is that I now have to spend more than before to buy fuel, which I do at least 25 times a month.”

My 2 cents worth: Firstly, by announcing the fuel hike was bad enough, but announcing it at the late afternoon and with effect on 12am that night was an idiot thing for our government to do.

The announcement by the government in late evening has lead to a massive mad rush to all petrol station in the country during off office rush hour. In Kuala Lumpur, with the late evening heavy rain, flash flood appear everywhere and all cars rushing to petrol station and this has cause massive jams in town.

This is, again, a bad move by our government which lead to unnecessary jams and mad rush of all motorist to petrol station. I dont understand why cant the government either announce it earlier or to give few days notice for all the people so that they do not have to rush to petrol station to fill up the tank to beat the 12am time line?

Government commented that our fuel price is the lowest in the region and with the price of the fuel in the world market going up, the government is unable to pay the increasing subsidy of fuel for our people. With the removal of fuel subsidy, the government can now use the saving for other subsidies as follow:

Where the RM13.7b savings will go

- RM7.5 billion goes back as subsidies for petrol, diesel and gas

- RM4 billion for food security

- RM1.5 billion for cooking oil subsidies

- RM400 million for standardising price of rice in Sabah and Sarawak

- RM200 million for flour subsidy

- RM100 million for bread subsidy

The government even dare to ask the people to understand their decision and do not take the anger to the street. The government, too, advice the people to change their lifestyle to reduce on their expenses and wastage.

I am just wondering who is the genius person who advice the government that this is a good move. Didnt they study economics? Didnt they realise that the fuel price is the root of the increasing of other commodities?

When fuel price up, transportation fee goes up. When transportation fee goes up, it will lead to other products, such as food to goes up as well. If our government is saying by removing the fuel subsidy away and they can now use the money to subsidies for food, what's the logic behind it? You save money on removing fuel subsidy, feul goes up and lead to food price up, you use the money you save to subsidies food, wont that be LPPL (Lan Pah Pak Lan)?

To change our lifestyle by reducing unnecessary expenses and wastage? How else can we change Mr Pak Lah? An average wage earner has a fix amount of money to use a month, after minusing the necessary expenses likes the house installment, car installment, bills and etc., whatever left may be use for some little entertainment, for example, going to movie, having a cup of coffee with friends and so on. This will help us to relax in this madness environment.

So now with this fuel hike, monthly expenses will now go up, what other way can we cut down. I would love Mr. Pak Lah to tell us. Is the government asking us to cut down on our personal entertainments and cutting down our family days by bringing our kids for fast food on weekend?

I read somewhere this morning about some comments on the fuel hike and I agreed with this person. He commented that people in other countries, such as Singapore and Thailand can survive with high fuel price because their government provide them with good public transportation. For example, Singapore's MRT is so well connected that one do not need to drive on his or her day-to-day activities.

Look at our country, LRT is only limited to those who stay near the routes, Wangsa Maju and Ampang for LRT, Kelana Jaya and Wangsa Maju for Putra. Town center by the Monorial.

Then what about those people stay in Subang, Damansara, Shah Alam, Kajang, Puchong and so on. These people have no choice but to drive to work. So these people will be the most affected by the fuel hike.

Lastly, I have great respect to the current central government, especially Pak Lah. Hold on, the reason I respect him is because after the March 8 Political Tsunami, the government already knows that the public is unhappy and yet he dare to announce the fuel hike just 3 months after the election. For that, he has my salute.

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