YOURSAY | ‘Was there lobbying by the mahakaya?’
Targeted RON95 subsidy savings slashed from RM8b to RM2.5-4b
Budi95 shows govt failed to make targeted subsidy system work: Muda
Govt to monitor daily RON95 refill frequency to curb subsidy abuse
BlueShark1548: After former economy minister Rafizi Ramli departed from the cabinet, they just could not get the formula and had to delay the announcement.
Hence, this populist declaration benefits all Malaysians and creates a black market for the sale of subsidised petrol.
An easy way out, which could have been done much earlier without cracking its head?
This is a sad reflection of the Madani government, which is so keen to announce that the petrol price would be reduced to below RM2 per litre.
What if suddenly international crude prices shoot up to US$90 (RM380) a barrel?
Eagle: Throwing billions of dollars on petrol subsidies is really foolish. What good does it bring?
Do people bother to save petrol by buying smaller cars, carpooling or using the car less? Do you see a husband and wife driving different cars for the same function?
Do they keep the car and air conditioning while waiting to pick up their children from school?
Yes, we get some cheaper petrol, but we are ungrateful for it. Subsidising petrol is like burning your own money.
We are already suffering from budget deficits, yet we want to throw away more money.
The biggest foolishness is that we borrow to fund the subsidy.
How many bridges, roads, and schools can you build with the burnt billions?
How good it would be if we eliminated all petrol subsidies.
Add a 10 or 20 sen profit margin, and it can be used to fund various programmes.
Atas Pagar: Why a sudden change of course? Lobbying by the mahakaya (rich elites)? Even billionaires get the RON95 subsidy.
From RM8 billion to RM2.5-4 billion? The recent gift of RM100 to all Malaysians, including billionaires, also does not make sense.
The government should focus on helping those who need to be helped.
Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim’s decision-making is very poor and unreasonable.
Perhaps it is politically motivated.
KK Voter: I have a slightly different view regarding the T20 in this case of fuel subsidies.
The subsidy is tied to driving licences, not the number of cars. So the T20 will not benefit more than others unless they somehow have more driving licences than cars.
In fact, it’s more likely the opposite: lower-income families tend to have more driving licences than cars.
That means the T20 can’t benefit more than 300 litres per licence, the same as everyone else.
Since they pay the most taxes, that amount is relatively insignificant.
This view applies only to fuel subsidies. When it comes to other taxes and subsidies, I’m equally baffled – for example, why low-value goods (LVG) were implemented immediately while the luxury goods tax was never introduced, despite all the talk about taxing the mahakaya.
The excuse about scaring away tourists was ridiculous, since tourists can shop at duty-free outlets anyway.
JWKK: Why the need to monitor refuelling frequency? What is the point then of capping individual usage of up to only 300 litres per month?
So, I go to the pump three times a day, but at the end of the month, the total amount is still less than 300 litres. Did I violate any policy?
Will I abuse this privilege just because I pumped three times? What constitutes abuse? This is mind-boggling.
Since there will be someone doing the monitoring, is that person working for free?
Even if you don’t have to hire new employees to do that, are you then not using people already working in some other areas to do this as well?
If these other people still have the time to do the monitoring, it strongly suggests these other people are redundant and should no longer be employed to save on taxpayers’ ringgit.
Hopeless. One step forward, two steps back.
Gen2: For that miserly sum, Madani is wasting everyone’s time and energy at the petrol station.
Not counting the security concerns with the ICs being handled by strangers.
Just another syiok sendiri project before the coming elections. You can recover that amount just by cracking down on all the corruption.
Undecided: The objective of the system is a good one, as subsidising fuel is unsustainable.
When the saving from the subsidy is known and recorded one year after implementation, we will know whether it was really worth it.
Changes can be made to prevent misuse and better implementation.
Perhaps more important is how the government makes use of this saving. Maybe the government should set up a special fund to help the B40.
Chefoo: We Malaysians will never appreciate any effort from the government. It’s like damned if you do, damned if you don’t.
This subsidy is a good start, and what’s wrong with letting all Malaysians, regardless of income, enjoy the subsidy?
All T20 and M40 are taxpayers.
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