Cowboy Caleb the liberal arts, grown-up stuff & random mischief

Malaysia: Cheap Cars, Pity About The Petrol Though

At around 9pm tonight, I drove into Johor Bahru from Singapore and found the city in chaos. Traffic was being diverted from the seaside road, because it looked like a crowd was staging a demonstration. Further along the way, every single petrol station I passed by was jam-packed with cars queueing-up to pump petrol.

Wondering what happened, I called Minishorts (because she knows everything about Malaysia, past, present and future) to ask what was going on. She informed me that the beloved Prime Minister had announced at 5pm that the price of fuel would increase from RM1.92/liter to RM2.70/liter - a hefty 40% hike.

Naturally, Malaysians are shaking their fists in anger. Amongst all the other oil-producing countries, Malaysia is the most expensive despite still being relatively cheap in the Asian region. This just smacks of bad governance.

While I myself am not that affected by the fuel hike (just eat less one Italian meal a month to make up for the difference maybe), the average Malaysian is going to feel like he’s just been f87ked up the arse everytime he goes to fill up his fuel tank.

Malaysians drive the relatively inexpensive National cars made by Proton and Perodua. These cars are so cheap that the monthly installments can go as low as RM300/month. But are they still going to be able to drive those cars if they can’t afford petrol?

I think they have to - because public transport is either spotty or non-existent. You can’t really rely on it to get you anywhere on time, much less to work.

Oh boy!

we as malaysian already expected this from the badawi, he said will announce the price hike for the august but suddenly announce a 0.78hike. same like the case when he said tat he is not planning to get married or not going to have an election soon but the next few weeks and days….he does that. cheapest petrol in the region? wat about the import car tax? we already paid <20k for the ’subsidies’….

and at the same time, still got the balls to compare us with singaporeans. they earn $2k n paying $2++ petrol, we earn RM2k and paying RM2.7 petrol which may go up again soon……do they really knew how to count? or they jus like to manipulate numbers……..

i think this is our ‘karma’ for voting the opposition…..damn..everything including the chicken increase after the election……damn u badawi, damn u umno

honestly we see this coming.
but after reading Jeff Ooi’s latest post, and how Petronas still able to make profit years after years, all my rasional turns to anger and frustration.

expect big demonstrations soon.
nabeh.

[...] to last us forever? Did you really stop and think for a moment that other countries (fine they are non-oil producing countries) are paying still paying 2-6 times more per litre than you are? Did you really think, with how oil [...]

hmm… Malaysia PMO website is down leh.
Did Badawi’s PMO tech support panic thinking that the website got “hacked” by someone pissed with the hike?

http://kormmandos.wordpress.com/2008/06/05/did-malaysia-pmo-website-get-hacked/

Malaysian fuel price cannot be compare to singapore or other nations. We got tolls surrounding our houses and yet we still have to pay heavy road tax and high duty tax on cars. Our medicare standards, unemployment benfits are way low compares to other nations. Our infrastructure and utilities are bad …not to mention our country have crude oils to cushion the oil hike impact. How to compare? Our government is the only champion in getting money from us but do nothing on us if you really want to compare. Cheh…

[...] Caleb describes the situation in Malaysia the night before higher oil prices took effect: “Traffic was being [...]

Hi all,

I would like Malaysians to think for a moment, that if our petrol prices are too low compared to Thailand and Singapore, these Thais and SG will just come over and pump our gas, in other words we are subsidising them…

So, I think the government policy to give a rebate to citizens is still better than subsidising everyone including foreigners driving into Malaysia.

In addition, the lower pump prices comes from giving petrol subsidies, and that is draining our national budget, which may pull down the Ringgit, causing higher inflation.

I hope Malaysians have the benefit of the country in mind before demonstrating.

So, best to have the fundamentals solved like what the government is doing than to avoid the bitter medicine, cos if you dont take the medicine now, it might get worse.

I must say that I am not a BN supporter, I am neutral politically, but on this count, I support the government policy and oppose any threats of demonstrations and rioting.

what have become the menteri?
kiling without notice?
this disturb the peace of all the malaysian.
peaple can start killing for this!