Malaysia EPF Camouflage

In recent announcement by Malaysian government that contributors to EPF(Employees Provident Fund) are allowed to contribute 3% less than the usual mandatory amount until 2010.
The reasons given were:
1) To bring relief to household income.
2) To stimulate Malaysian’s declining economy due to global financial crisis.

The measure taken will perhaps contribute to relief and stimulation but who are the losers.

What had not been explained, as usual, to the unsuspecting contributors, was ‘the catch’.

We had indeed over-looked the implication of this government’s move until my daughter asked me, ‘will it increase her income tax’.

I am sure many were just as unsuspecting as me.
If our income is already in the taxable bracket, any amount that you get out of the 3% will be taxed at its maximum.
Now, do we still think our government is very caring and concerned on our well-being ?
Or they are just simply incompetent!

Clarification:
If your gross income is between Rm28K & Rm58K, and you do not have additional personal insurance for deduction, then you stand to lose out in this 'generous' move from government.
Apparently the target group is on young workers.


Vegee Plot continue....






Today, the 1st brinjal has reached the size of 120mm x 100mm, the purple colour has somehow faded. Perhaps it is being over matured.
A second brinjal had formed and the size is 100mm x 85 mm.

The Vegee Plot

Had cultivated this plot before I left for Kuala Lumpur and that was in mid July.
When I got back in mid September, it was in miserable shape, full of aphids and mealybugs. Since then I had given it a round of insecticide and watered it regularly.

Waa-hoo, what do you know, the tomato is profuse in fruits, the chilli plant has shot up to about 5 feet and full of chillies.

What amazed me most is the brinjal (egg plant), I had expected it to be of the other type which is elongated in shape but this appeared the round type. Not much fruit with it, only 3 that I had noticed.

The earliest formed had become quite big. Photo taken on 8th Nov. showed it to be around 60mm tall & 100mm in width.

As of today, I had it measured again, the width had reached 120mm and the height was 90mm.

I just wonder how big it can really grow.

According to Wikipedia, brinjal is known to grow to 250mm long and 90mm broad, can weigh up to 1 kilogram.

So far with this one, it is already broad enough but I doubt it can reach that length. It may just mature and wilt. I can wait to see what happens next in coming weeks.

Going Bananas!

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Snapshot: Malaysian politicians are going bananas, chasing each other across borders and playing cat and mouse. Lots of denying in changing allegiance or not, do the opposition has enough MPs for a new mandate? All these will unveil in coming months. Again, of course depends on how the present government behaves, if they still do not understand and continue their wayward behaviour, nothing can help them. The opposition had always insisted that they wanted a smooth transition and there is really no hurry for it.



Got a surprise when a cluster of banana plants was bearing fruits. From the shape of the unripe green fruit it looked like ‘Pisang Emas’. One of the best kind?

(doesn't it look yummy, like pisang emas?)

Anyway, yesterday we discovered one of the plants in which its fruit was ripe for harvesting. Finally, got a chance to taste it.

Upon peeling the banana, it looked kind of funny in colour, blackish, instead of the normal white colouring. We had some reservation on what kind of banana was it. You had that funny feeling straight away that it was really odd, might not be banana, could even be poisonous.

In breaking it into half, then it suddenly dawn on us that the blackish colour came from the seeds. It was a wild banana! Still, I got to a taste of it, neutral in taste and a bit sour near the seed, very little flesh, hardly felt it and the seeds were gritty & hard.

(seeds)

Now my problem is how to get rid of this cluster of wild banana plants.

On reflection, do we have an analogy here with our political situation???

Ahmad Ismail...Catalyst To......Come 16/9

Ahmad Ismail is a timely reminder to all Malaysians what UMNO people are made of, it is not the first time that such racial rhetoric was viperously used to rouse the sentiment of Malaysians, such was further confirmed by the UMNO divisions in Penang.

Are we getting used to such racial rhetoric?

Are we really that easy to forget and need constant reminder from the racial guidance of UMNO?

History was told that a country without unity and harmony in its populace would eventually meet its demise. UMNO had been the culprit for the past 30 years and perhaps it is a blessing in disguise that such timely effort is just ripe for a more responsible party to take over the government of Malaysia.
Malaysia needs a different direction that respect our constitutions, the 20 points agreement in the formation of Malaysia and social obligations both written and unwritten to take us into the future.
Such government should not undermine other social groups just for perpetual power in Malaysia. Malaysian problems had manifested themselves and any effort to change is a welcome sight.

Do we really need an apology from Ahmad Ismail?
This monster ought to be in jail long ago and so are some of our present leaders if our government is decent enough.

Our recent 2009 budget is a joke.
In June, we were slapped with fuel and energy increment of between 40 to 60 percent, to reduce subsidy.
As it was said, that the subsidy had inflated to almost 50 billion ringgit, equivalent to our development budget.
In September budget, our expenditure budget was increased, this almost double compared to 4 years ago while development budget is still at about 50 billion ringgit.
The last energy hike had caused inflation, unnecessary hardship, devaluation in ringgit, less domestic spending and discouraged Direct Foreign Investment.
Quite naturally, the government spending is increased, due to inflation. This is a vicious circle, inflation, more hardship and more spending. The biggest losers of all are those who save their money in fixed deposit, ASN, ASB, A Wawasan, EPF and insurance. How much do they really worth in a few years time under the present policy?
I do not expect the PM to know much in economy, though he is the Finance Minister but the 2nd Finance Minister had bad history, ought to be replaced immediately.

Never mind, come 16th September ……….

Interesting Online Streaming Of Results From Permatang Pauh By-election.

A lot of attention was given to the just concluded by-election at Permatang Pauh constituency.
Many Malaysians take it as a start of things to come, for a new Malaysia where better racial harmony, more transparency, less corruption and improved judicial system, are anticipated.
The end result is DSAI won with a majority of 15671 votes over the BN candidate. It is a big enough margin for the BN government to revise their approach in the governance of Malaysia and the anticipations of all Malaysians? Let’s hope so.

However, there were interesting reports online, right from the close of poll to the final results announced at around 21:47 hours whereby Anwar – 31,195 votes; Arif – 15,524 votes and Hanafi – 92 votes (total – 46,811), giving Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim a majority of 15,671 votes.
The total turnout was 81.01% (NST quoted), there was no mention on the number of spoilt votes. If the 81.01% can be taken as correct, then the total number of 58,459 registered voters will give us a number of 47,358 voters that turned out to vote on 26th Augusted 2008 at Permatang Pauh and the spoilt votes would be 547 votes.

Many of us were interested to know the result, earliest possible and yours truly included.

6.40pm – As quoted through NST online, an official from the election commission announced that the turnout is about 63%, meaning only about 35,829 voters turned out to vote. Just an estimate, I believe, quite easily done as there are only 28 voting centers and I believe the numbers are already tallied and a glance can possibly give you a rough estimate across the board, if the figures showed every number from each center is in the sixties percentage.

8.00 to 9.00pm – My wife called and told me that over TV3, evening news, it was announced that Anwar had garnered more than 29K votes, while Arif obtained 14,444 votes (remembered this clearly, as someone commented on the not so nice sounding of four in Chinese). This was already unassailable at that point.

8.32pm – Malaysiakini unofficially reported, Anwar – 31,949 votes; Arif – 14,297 votes and Hanafi – 74 votes.

In summary:

6:40pm – Election commission - Turnout 63% - 35,829 votes
8.10pm – TV3 – Anwar (29000 +, - 1K); Arif (14444) - 43,444 (+ or – 1,000) votes counted
8.32pm – Malaysiakini (unofficial) – Anwar (31949); Arif (14297) Hanafi (74) - about 46,320 votes counted.
10.35pm – NST – final result – Anwar (31195); Arif (15524); Hanafi (92) & 81.01% turnout = 47,358 votes.

Throughout the evening right until the final result was announced, every follower of the election result would be under the impression that the turnout was between 65 to 63 percent. It was certainly a surprise that the final result turned out this way. 81.01 percent!

Are we forgetting something? Could it be the postal votes factor or the online reporting had not been accurate.
But from the flow of results, I believe the majority could have been slightly higher but not that much to show it to be more dramatic. To the gamblers who bet on the difference, this could be win or lose and large sum could change hands, poor buggers!

But if the initial quote of 60 to 65% were to be correct, also mentioned by the election commission as quoted by NST at 6.40pm on election day, than the implication is significant. There are about 8,800 votes that are not caste on the same day. The main-stream-media had since withdrawn all the sixties odd percentage from their online news portal.
The lesson to learn from this is: it is never easy to cover live events if it is necessary to cover up some of the truth.

Is Lying Our Best Policy?

We had been taught that it is difficult to lie and dishonest then to be sincere and honest. The more you lie, the more you will have to cover up, especially if you are a public figure.
Have our politicians figured this out, yet.
It is difficult to believe whatever our government says anymore.
Our Malaysian government made mistakes and every time in order to cover up, they made bigger fools of themselves. This leads us quite naturally to believe that our leaders are not capable of the tasks at hand and people who read both sides of the news would not be confident or comfortable with the present bunch in power.

Good News – Fuel Reduction.
The fuel price will decrease from today….Great!
They went on to say that it was not politically motivated by the coming P44 by-election.
Just deep concern for the suffering Malaysians, as on July inflation was up 8.5%. (Wait till you get your August electricity bill, easily 25% more than the previous month)
Why can’t they just keep quiet.
Didn’t they ever think of this before the drastic fuel increment?
It is too late to be sorry after you have beaten someone, half dead - just compensate for the suffering and the medical bill.
The more the government tried to show concern, after the fact, it only sounded so insincere and incompetent. Are they trying to take us as fools.

Look at the price reduction as tabulated:
It was further said that the government would maintain the subsidy at 30 sens for petrol and 50 sens for diesel. However, until the end of this year, the ceiling price is capped at the max. prices already happened this year.

Can you really believe what the government is telling us?
All these subsidies is nonsense, the price that is been increased the most and now reduced that least. It seems they are just habitual liars.
From the set of figures, it also shows that there is no policy to encourage more efficient use of fossil fuel, meaning the government does encourage inefficiency?
With present technology, most mechanical minded people will tell you that diesel engine is a more efficient engine. Most efficient petrol engines will require Ron97.
What they are literally telling us is to use 1960s technology in our transportation. Little wonder our fuel usage keeps pilling up.

Touch N Go Card.
In another separate matter, the customer service department head told us that its card only has a lifespan of 10 years.
When asked for the reason, he said like all electronic products there is wear & tear, as such only last for about 10 years.
Another typical case of lying, do our Mycard will only last for 10 years.
What he should have said, we like to make a bit of money out this, after-all it is only a ringgit a year.
We, off course, will hope to keep the RM15 if the customer were to abandon the usage totally. The same reason why we have so few reload centres around, where you can reload free of charge.
If we are inconsistent with what we say, we have to be lying!

Do Malaysians Still Trust Their Main Stream Media

At the end of the day, can the BN government come out of this constant political manoeuvre of late by the opposition and smell like roses.
Since the 8th of March, 12GE, the opposition had been taking potshot at the government with accusations and the likelihood that the opposition will had enough crossover to form the government.
Five states had already been claimed by the opposition since the March results and it takes little imagination that there is such possibility.
The government since then had been playing big suckers to entertain most lawmakers and states by giving increased allocations and more projects.
Any negligence in the past, had been promised with renewed seriousness, and in Sabah, the illegal migrant problem.
If things were not right in the beginning and there is no policy change from the authorities, there is little to convince the Sabahans that the illegal migrant problems will be ‘investigated’ thoroughly. Pardon me, I do not recall any investigation and the present exercise in flushing out all illegal migrants will prove futile and could just be a waste of time and money.

Back to the game, opposition versus government.

It seems the government is not good at this and falls in the opposition’s trap every so often.
Mostly out of their own ignorance and arrogance, still hoping that the main-stream-media will report favourably and ignore whatever mistakes/contradictions there are in their reports.
There is a limit in which the media can do, if the government do not stop exposing contradictory statements and provide stupid answers or out of spike, give sweeping statements which either means nothing or just plain stupid. They will not know what hit them when the cards crumble.
The quality of people running the government plays an important role, take for instance, the Anwar sodomy charge, there is nothing to show presently that Saiful, the accuser, is telling the truth. Statements from the government only pointed to the rule of law and quite unbalance, if the pursuit seems to be one sided, as it is been done now. How on earth can you ask the Malaysians to believe, if such people also have the internet access for alternative news.

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The by-election in P44, Permatang Pauh would be interesting, perhaps it is a blessing in disguise for the government, if they can wake up from the state of self-denial. Should Anwar able to win convincingly by historical margin, it goes to show ‘proper news’ can reach its readers despite government attempt to subdue them. Should the reverse happens, the MSM is still effective in forming the perception. Which then, is sad for Malaysia.

Saiful’s Doctor Statutory Declaration

Dr. Mohd Osman Ab Hamid who was apparently the 1st to make medical examination on Saiful’s anus for evidence that it had been penetrated, made a statutory declaration on 1st August on what he could recalled had happened and the days that followed, until he had to take leave and left Malaysia.

If all these that appeared in the alternative media were true.
What puzzled me most, the police, indirectly the government, is convinced that Saiful’s story is credible.
Had the government only been reading what the main-stream-media dished out?
It seems they have been convinced by self-denial and wrong advice.
If they still do not wake up to this reality, I am afraid they will not be in government for long!

Saiful Medical Report

Saiful, who had accused Datuk Seri Anwar of sodomising him had himself first examined by Dr. Mohamed Osman Abdul Hamid of Hospital Pusrawi and attached is the report as widely circulated in bloggersphere.




The examination and report was made at 2:14 pm on 28th June 2008.
This report was clarified by Mark C., a commenter on Raja Petra Kamarudin’s Malaysia Today website, where the medical report first appeared.
We know how difficult it is to read doctor’s handwriting and I believe Mark C is of the same breed.

There is argument that such report is violating the privacy between doctor and patient. We should also be reminded that there is also a law against concealing of evidence.
Saiful knew that evidence did not exist and yet made the police report.
He is making a mockery of our police force which otherwise would have better things to do.
Or do they?

The Quality of our Leaders And Patience of our Police Force thoroughly Exposed.

Wan Farid: What's the difference 20 or 50 minutes

TAKE TWO

What's the difference Rm1.92 or Rm2.70

It has been political ‘cat and mouse’ game between the opposition and the government for the past few weeks.
Somehow, the people that our PM had assigned to carry out the duties, had turned out to be liabilities to him rather than help, to secure more confidence in his government which had been badly scarred since the 12th general election, in march this year.

If the main-stream-media reports were to be believed, which we normally thought to be biased on the government side, than this indeed convinced the Malaysians more than ever that we had inherited in government, a bunch a no hopers, lack in focus and patience but full of arrogance and still convinced than it is not their own doings that had caused the Malaysians to be disillusion to them. It may perhaps hit the dead nail to the present ruling coalition.

Let us start with the debate between Anwar and Shabery.
The subject matter was on oil price increment and the opposition said that they would be able to reduce it if they were in government.
The government side in fact had lots of points to rebut this. One of which is perhaps to change the mentality of Malaysians not to be wasteful on limited resources and the perennial expected price subsidy attitude.
This was good forum for the government to lay their case and thrush out any lingering doubts that may be in the Malaysian minds. But no, instead of having an intelligent debate from the government, it had turned out to be a history lesson and accusations on its opponent, which were totally out of the subject matter of this debate.
While the opposition, represented by Anwar, gave the reasons on how they are able to do it and the benefits it brings.
If our PM still had full trust on such minister, I am sad on the prolonged consequences to our beloved nation.

We know very well that the opposition is doing what they can, to expose the weaknesses of the government and the subject is doing a splendid job to help them.
Such weaknesses are already inherent, to be exploited and the government just do not have the ability to change, it is already too ingrained.
It is becoming clearer by the day, that we indeed need a complete change, nothing can be worse than what we had, that is what the government seems to be telling its people from its actions. What a pity!

Another example, as reported by MSM, the CID police branch arrested the opposition leader before the deadline. The deadline was widely published by media and from the horse’s mouth itself.
Though they may not be wrong in doing this, but it shows the arrogance and impatience of our police force, which already had suffered in the past, out of their own doing. Do they simply lack intelligence and common sense?It only shows how capable they are in handling highly charged cases and in protecting the image of Malaysia by taking actions on presumptions. They are just dangerous!
Worse yet, our deputy in Home Ministry said what is the difference in 20 to 50 minutes. Now, such attitude only further convinces the Malaysians that our government just cannot keep a promise. It is just not in their habit.
These people in power have to change before the Malaysians change them!But then again….. don’t waste my time, they are just incorrigible!

Malaysia Today

The Malaysian government said we were spending almost 40 billion in fuel subsidy, in which just about equal our development budget for the year.
With our population at 26 million, this works out to rm1538.46 per Malaysian per year.
If this is distributed, that person who had 3 wives and going for the forth and had 18 children, would get a total of rm35,384.62 for his family, almost equal to his yearly salary of 36K per year. I don’t think he needs to work any more.

Jokes aside, where had all our billions gone to, was it used to improve our cost of production whereby foreign investors would find it attractive enough to invest here and multiply our billions of hard cash spent.
We are a net oil exporter and if foreign investors do not find us attractive enough, something must be very wrong somewhere.Our past policies must have been wrong and it is coming back to hound us.

I have to take our klang valley as an example, as it is the most industrialised part of our country. It cost quite a lot to stay in the klang valley of Malaysia, where most of the industries are and thus job opportunity.
The closer you can get to rent a residence, to your place of work, the higher is the rental and unfortunately such residences are also limited and fully occupied. The security is another problem.
After staying in the klang valley on and off for the past year, I have come to the conclusion that you need at least Rm900 per month now, just to stay there and move around. This does not include your other necessities. (This is beginning to sound something like a head count tax)

It seems everything goes in sync with each other, if you were to stay near a place where you work, the rent will be exorbitant and should you stay in another residential area away from the industrial area, you pay a high price for transportation or an unavoidable loss of time.
Thus my gut feeling is, you will have to spend that much if you are to stay alone and being a working person. This is beside the food that you have to consume and other necessities.
For a person to live decently in klang valley, he would need a job that pays at least rm1800 per month, anything less than that, he would be living like a rat in a rat hole.
I do not think, one would have much left over at the end of the month and he can forget about entertainment, just work like a slave.

So, can the Malaysian government bring down the cost of living in the industrialized area like klang valley, despite raising the cost of fuel?
Without a doubt, I think they can, if they are sincere in tackling this issue.
There had been so much abuse and conflict of interests in the past that it gives them a huge margin to adjust without burdening the Malaysians further.
There was desire to improve the public transport in 1996 after the fuel increment but as we could see, the desire was not to improve the mobility of the working people but for school children to school and housewives to do shopping.
The conflict of interest here, it seems, the government wanted the working class to have their owned form of transportation.
It wanted to see no end in the increasing sales of motorized vehicles.

It takes at least 4 changes in public transportation to get to your place of work on a single trip (return trip not included), if you are lucky and staying about 20 km from your place of work. This distance takes at least 2 hours in traveling and waiting time, on a single trip. Thus for a day, you spend 4 hours on a 8 hours working day just on transportation time. Don’t you think it is ridiculous?

The government had said that the fuel subsidy had reach a point where it almost equate the development budget for the year and thus the fuel price increased up to 40%.
It is only logical now, more important now than ever, to discourage vehicle ownership. The public transportation improvement should get the first priority.
Shaft those corridors, if you can convince at least 50% of the working class and industrial sector to used public transport, imagine the saving, it will be in billions and actually it will be self financing.
We do not know what the former transport and works ministers had been doing, to get us to such a mess but hey, this can be a blessing in disguise.
The present ministers can improve on this without straining the budget further.
If this is given the priority, our ministers should be talking and discussing about this, not the corridors, shaft those corridors for all I care!
We had been going down the wrong path for the past 25 years and it is about time we make the right turn.

My Dear Pak Lah

My Favourite Comic

Pak Lah, you know, hor, we Malaysians are very cham already. We all lub you, we all know you are doing your very best.
What to do, hor? The Americans, the british, the japs, the chins and the khiling, disturb our economy only. They don’t want to invest in our place, hor. They say we don’t know how to do business, we only kasi naik harga barang only.
I know it is not true, you got many ma-chai to take care, hor and all want to be putera-putera and puteri-puteri, so difficult to take care, hor.

You know, ah, pak lah, we know you really, really work very, very hard, sampai you look so sleeping everyday, people just don’t know.
You have to take care of the whole Malaysia, we all know you cannot leave your ma-chai alone, basket, they will all steal us bankrupt, hor.
Some more, hor, you have to play tat-tat with you lovely wife, hor. At your age, please take care, hor. Don’t hurt you back, okay.

I know actually, hor, you are a very nice person, you know, hor, in the last erection I actually wanted you but when I went to the polling station, so many people said you are not good lah, I was so confused, so I just hantam saja. I simply cross and made a prayer for you. I actually forgot how to vote as you say. So sorry, hor.

Aiya, the Sabah monkeys making a lot of noise again, hor.
The WWF also cannot do anything, you know or not. I think you can control them, kan? You already give them some peanuts, see all of them sokong you now, kan?
Aiya, still got one, wants to bite you, what you want to do, ha? I don’t know if you can hantam him with the ACA and bring him to court with your ma-chai now.
You see, hor, your ma-chai is not very clever, lost so many big-big cases already, kan.
I think never mind, lah. There are only two of them but be careful, hor, I think you should give them bigger peanuts, you know like the coconut, okay? Hopefully they choked, then we can have another erection, nice kan?

You know, ha, you must trust me because I am your fren and I am very good, I don’t talk about ketuanan, I love all kinds of religions because I don’t know how to choose, I love all kinds of people because I swing both ways, see, you must trust me lor.
You know or not, your other people’s son is very sneaky, hor. Maybe he only married your daughter because of you, so be careful, ha. You can trust me wan, because I am the cham people, mah.

You know or not, ha, people said your deputy and his wife did very nasty thing, I pun takut to say it here. You know, ha, people also say, his ministry buy goods also at very high price, something like Maggie for the price of Kancil. You know, hor, it is no good for your nice image.
Aiya, how to get rid of him, ha, he also got very very strong backing from someone who left your office. Aiya, really susah, hor? I am still cracking my head, to help you, no promise, ha.

Aiya, your ma-chai are really susah lah, all they want are project-project saja.
All your bajet also have to go to them, somemore not enough, have to increase somemore for them in your plan.
So susah, hor. I really pity you, your kepala pun pening.
You must take care of your health, pak lah. They say gingko and viagra are good for people of your age, you must try some, ha.
See, I am always on you side, not like those smart ass ma-chai, always want to kachau saja, hor. They say you flip-flop like an acrobat, you cannot decide.
But I know, what to decide, hor? Must know only how to distribute the money, kan?

You must help cham people like us, can ha? People say you got plenty power, you can give plenty money to your ma-chai to keep them quiet. You must be very powerful, hor. Can you help cham people like us by reduce the tax, get rid of the toll, reduce the car price, protect our savings, reduce the barang barang price, can or not, ha?
I hope you can, because your ma-chai say you are very powerful and you can do anything, wan. Thank you, hor.

Malaysians Must Unite!

Most traders are ruthless people and would try to make more profit if given the slightest chance.
Unavoidable inflation will eventually deplete our incomes and savings, given the recent increase in energy price, brought on by the Malaysian government.
No traders will want to be left out and would like to get ahead the soonest possible. This includes those from ‘teh tarik’ shop right to the recent behaviour of the Petrol Stations.
Consumers can sympathize with some of the traders, as their basic cost had actually increased and it was just cost plus the competitive margin of profit.
They are not only facing the stiff competition, they have to explain to their loyal customers and apologize for it, as they have no monopoly on their type of business.

Coming back to the petrol stations in Malaysia, they can be considered the privileged lot, as no one can simply set up a business in fuel trading, they are all selected!!!
To say that the members of the Petrol Dealers Association is losing will be ridiculous. They said they are no longer accepting credit card for payment, as it cost them 2.7 cents per liter now, which still works out as 1% mathematically. Some may not be earning as much as before but given also the fairly large percentage of those who pay in cash, in actual fact they may end up earning more.
For those who use credit card, they would normally fill up their tank, meaning a higher value in each transaction and thus higher return.

Overall, the petrol station operators should appreciate a higher fuel price, as it means higher earnings.
These lot of members definitely do not belong to the group of poor buggers.
They have the privilege to be among the first few to have a better earning to overcome the inflation. What is there to complain!
It is the normal wage earners who are suffering at the moment. There is no guarantee that they may get salary increment at the end of the year.
The members of this traders association are just being unscrupulous and insensibly trodden the consumers when opportunity present itself.
It is a known fact that with a flip-flop government like in Malaysia, it pays to complain and threaten the government, be it commercially or politically.
What happened in the latest announcement by the government to the petrol station operator is, the commission is increased by another 2.7 cents to compensate for the credit card commission, while the increment in credit card commission is actually 0.78 cents.
We would have imagined that the commission at previous petrol price had been compensated for the card commission.
One just wonder, if there is any purpose in increasing the petrol price in the first place. How much further, those money saved from reduced subsidy can be stretched, it may all just end as a futile exercise. This is what the government appeared to be very good at.

It is about time the consumers must unite, at a time like this we must boycott those traders who are unscrupulous in their method of doing business.
I still remember vividly in the mid 1980s, there was a shortage in subsidized diesel but no such shortage in commercial/industrial diesel in which was sold at a higher price.
Among the stations operating then, were Shell, Mobile and Esso.
During this crisis, in Esso station you would always find that the subsidized diesel exhausted but right next to the Esso station you would find a skid tank selling commercial/industrial diesel.
Since that day, I had sworn that I will never step into another Esso station again and I will also try to convince my friends or anyone I come across to do the same.
I urge the consumers to take note of those stations that do not accept credit card and in future just boycott it.
We do not need such type of people in dealing with the essentials and we can all sleep better at night.

In another front, I can’t help but fumed at BN management committee meeting on Tuesday, wanting SAPP to explain and a show-cause letter will be issued.
What is there to explain, if the committee still do not understand what is at stake at the moment with Sabah, they don’t deserve to be in government.

The outstanding issues in Sabah are glaringly clear, what they do now is just talk, talk and talk, plus all kinds of aspiring lips services.
About time, Sabah should give the Federal government a show-cause letter in which is long overdue.

Do the UMNO stooges in Sabah have the guts and will power to safeguard the state or afraid that they will be investigated by the ACA.
You see, Sabahan politicians are quite amateurish compared to those old rascals in the central and there can be allot of skeletons under the federal safeguard.

SAPP Political Move Is With The Spirit of Sabahans

Has it ever crossed your mind or noticed that Sabah state assembly cabinet members are called ministers and not councilors as practiced in Peninsula states of Malaysia.
This is because when Sabah entered to form Malaysia with Sarawak, Singapore and Malaya, they joined as equal partners and with the same sovereignty and autonomy. Its spirit is expressed in the 20-point Agreement.
In fact under point 13 of the 20-point Agreement, the name Prime Minister was mentioned for the Sabah ‘state’ government.
We have to understand the circumstances that Sabah joined Malaysia in order to appreciate their dissatisfaction at the moment.
While Sabah had fulfilled its part, the same cannot be said with the federal government. It is common knowledge in Sabah that it rights had deteriorated and its political landscape had changed.

This is what Wikipedia has to say about the matter:
The 20-point Agreement was written for the main purpose of safeguarding the interests, rights, and the autonomy of the people of Sabah upon entering the Federation of Malaysia. It was originally envisaged that Sabah will be one of the four entities in the Federation, the others being Malaya, Singapore, and Sarawak. However, as times passed, Sabah and Sarawak ended up being merely one of the 13 states in the Federation

There is no doubt that the 20-point agreement is wilting and if the present Sabah parliamentarians were to do nothing about it, more changes and deterioration will happen.

SAPP, a small Sabah political party of the coalition in government, made a significant move and declared its dissatisfaction by voicing no confidence on the Malaysian prime minister.
Which is totally right, as Sabah had been burdened with illegal immigrants, unsubstantiated new Malaysian identity to foreigners who did not qualify, poor infrastructure, unfair distribution of wealth, high unemployment rate and being the poorest state in Malaysia, despite its wealthy resources. Their earlier calls to resolve these, particularly the Royal Commission to look into the illegal immigration problem, were ignored or given the delayed treatment.

What followed this declaration, we suddenly find the Anti-corruption Agency is opening the file to investigate the party president.
We can be highly suspicious of its timing and can only conclude that it is political blackmail.
Apparently, this was something happened 12 years ago and the party president was then investigated and interviewed by them.

Why all this rhetoric from the ACA all of a sudden.
Is it a timely reminder to potential parliamentarians not to step out of line? If such is the case, their integrity is at stake. They have a duty to the Malaysians and the country.

Further to this, the same conclusion can be arrived at most of Sabah parliamentarians. Most of them had been vocal in demanding Sabah rights and wanted more emphasis and demand to know why Sabah security and immigration problems still persist. All of them suddenly fell silence and became non-committal.
It is sad to note that our Government Agencies, paid from our tax money and resources, are used as political tools for those who walk the corridor of power.

There is little wonder why Malaysia is imbedded into a 3rd world country and classified as such. We just do not have the right people to get us out of this shit at the moment.

We just need a total overhaul!

Can A Mosquito Party Fight For Sabah

SAPP president finally made his call, demanding in no uncertain terms that Sabah woes must be addressed, in yet the most assertive way by demanding the PM resignation.

We take comfort to such a move and anticipate concrete effort will be made to address the immigration, poverty, better equity to oil revenue and autonomy in state government.

The federal government had shunned it duty to provide for Sabah, instead involved in local politics to determine the type of state government it wanted.
They wanted to perpetuate their strong hold on Sabah in whatever means possible, including changing the state political scene which we saw had already happened.

The federal government should be more involved in the macro economy, politics and policy of Malaysia, making national decision whereby we can be competitive in the world economy.
To the contrary, they are more interested in kampong politics, using unfair federal policies which were in place to arm-twist the state government and its people into submission.
By having such attitude, the federal government is just not matured or capable enough to handle the world. They are a threat to Malalysia.

It can be said that SAPP president, Datuk Yong Teck Lee is greedy in making this political threat.
But then who is not in this political world, especially in a country like Malaysia,
I am glad that such greed had been taken correctly and inspired him to right the wrong for the benefit of Sabah.
Less can be said of others, from the same state, made strong threats but changed directions when given some personal benefits. This are the type of selfish politicians we must rid off, they do not look into the larger picture and only aim for personal gain.

Now we can only hope, some positive outcome can happen for the benefit of Sabah & its people.

Fuel Subsidy Rebate

Post offices open its doors to handle the fuel subsidy rebate yesterday. As reported by mainstream media, there is a mad rush to get this generosity from the government.One may ask; what is the hurry? why the mad rush? After all the government did say you have the whole year to claim what you are entitled.

We are only talking just a small portion of the car owners and these are those who had just recently renewed their road tax i.e. April & May. Come July the 1st , I cannot imagine how big the crowd will be, it will probably stretch the queue for a few kilometers.
Some post offices probably did not expect such mammoth crowd, as reported some of them ran out of forms and worst of all money as well. This is to be expected, as no one would have expected such a huge turnout.
When it come to something free, better still like rebate, it is typical of Malaysians, they just cannot wait to grab them. But normally free offers from any sales outlet has conditions and normally limited to a very short period and you cannot blame the people who try not to miss out, thus the mad rush.

In the case of fuel subsidy rebate, why do we have to rush, we have the whole year to get back what we are entitled.
Unless there are other reasons:
The Malaysians must be very much affected by the fuel price, such little relief is a very welcomed savior.
Or
The Malaysians are afraid that the government may change its mind and withdraw the rebate. One cannot tell for sure, as was said before, early this year that there will be no price change in fuel until the end of this year and that was before the general election. Not only there was a change but a record of more than 40% as well.

Is Malaysia Gambling With Its Oil Resources?

The MP from Kalabakan in Sabah is on the prowl again, jumping onto the bandwagon on criticism of the government’s petrol hike and allowances cut on ministers.
All seem sincere and with dedication to eradicate wastage and proper suggestion to the government, as what MPs should.
The unfortunate thing is; what will be his motive this time.
In the last episode on Sabah illegal migrants, just a month ago, he was among the first to make hue and cry on the government to do something, failing which under no uncertain term, he may not support the government, so it seemed.
When it came to the gist of it, the MP from Kalabakan was conspicuously quiet and among the group of MPs from Sabah, they were against the formation of Royal Commission. Instead, retrace the old path of parliamentary committee to look into it.
The only difference in this committee is the superlative adjective of ‘high power’.
Something good did come out of this trying exercise. The MPs in Sabah are given additional allowances to line their pockets.
While every citizen is trying to tighten their belts, what can be his motive this time; perhaps the extra Rm400K doesn’t mean that much anymore, when you take inflation into account.

As usual, now we have our attention directed elsewhere. Has the ‘High Power’ parliamentary committee been formed yet? Or is there any attempt at this moment? We are starting another cycle whereby history again, will play itself out. As always being said, Malaysians forget easily.

In another related matter on petrol hike, they were discussion on why Petronas is losing heavily on subsidy as admitted by its chairman.
The record in crude price, it seems is not doing Malaysia any good as suggested by Petronas chairman.
What can be the possible reason, since Malaysia is a net exporter in crude oil.
The chairman also said foreign oil companies are profiting on the subsidy and draining away our money.
This indeed is very strange, as foreign distiller and retailer also have to get the crude from the world market.
The only possible explanation to this is, Petronas could be gambling on our country’s security in oil.
Could they be speculating on our crude price and had committed our production way back at a much lower price? Of course now that the price is at its peak, they will lose out on the difference and thus the difference is something extra that they had lost in their little misdemeanour.
We will never know if such is happening unless there is more transparency and the reasons for it.
If such is true, with our crude committed into the future at a much lower price, the present peak price is inducing worldwide inflation and thus we are doubly caught.

Remember what happened during the financial crisis in 1997?
Malaysia’s dabbling in foreign exchange that had cost us billions; we can only hope such is not happening this time. More important now is do we still have the same people managing our security resources, if those people are still there and with the same mentality, the chance is we would be in the same kind of shit as we had in 1997.

Is Malaysia Doing The Right Thing, We Can’t Curb Fuel Usage And Discourage Alternatives At The Same Time

I am still brooding over the statement by our Malaysian government that because of the crude steep price increment, we can no longer afford to maintain the subsidised fuel at previous level, to do so will only mean we have to sacrifice development fund and failure to maintain the price of other essentials.
The whole picture is fuzzy, there is lack of transparency and there is no way we can debate and suggest to help otherwise.

However, I am still not convinced that our government is telling the truth.
Malaysia is a net exporter of crude oil, we use up less than what we produce and the surplus is exported.
In fact we exported our sweet crude at much higher price and imported the lower quality crude.
To say that we are subsidising the foreign oil company, like shell is also not true, in fact very naughty of Petronas chairman to even suggest.
Foreign companies buy crude from international market, in fact they are extending credit to the Malaysian government by selling petrol at below cost and have to wait for refund.

Why I say, we are advantaged by high crude price, let us take an example:

When the crude is at USD60 per barrel, our pump price is at Rm1.92, we had allocated budget for, say A amount for development and other subsidies for essentials.

Now with crude at Rm130 per barrel, the government said we can no longer can maintain our pump price at Rm1.92 and to do so we would incur B amount for the same development and other essentials.

Now, B is larger than A. So the government said we need to increase pump price so that A can be equal to B. Sounds logical.

But Malaysia is a net exporter of oil, say we have a net surplus in trade of X billions at crude price of USD60 per barrel and at higher crude price X will be larger. Agree?

Let’s say, there is a country in the middle-east, their only revenue is from oil and the rest of the other requirements are imported.
They produced just enough to meet their requirements and at crude price of USD60, they are able to meet their budget with their profit of X billions in crude export.
Now that the price of crude had gone up to USD130, is the Malaysia government telling us that this middle-east country won’t be able to meet their earlier budget and requirements?
If this is the case, why did this middle-east country want to increase his price of crude in the first place? And also, if this is beyond this middle-east country control, it would have to increase production just to survive but there is no sign of this in the world of crude oil production.

I don’t think our government is telling the truth, we should have more to enjoy and the pump price can be maintained if they wanted to.
This may be more of political move to win back support since the disastrous last election.
It will be despicable if this is what our government is doing, to disrupt our daily lives for political gains.

Another theory may be we are threatened to reduce subsidy by the developed countries, countries that are importing our cheap goods because their own production is not as competitive.
Their NGOs and governments had been accusing and pressurising us as perpetuators against ‘green world’, health problem products, labour exploitation, minimum wage, exchange rate manipulation, etc.
For all we know, it is their grand design, in manipulating the price of energy to overcome their disadvantage.
They may already have secret deals with major oil producing countries who guaranteed them certain volume of crude at a minimum price. The scene is played out by their speculators in the commodity market and they make no effort to control this speculation.

Is our government playing into their hands?

Yet again, the world economy is dangerously coupled with mineral oil as energy.
We need to de-couple it; we urgently need alternative sources of energy.
These sources are available everywhere and unexploited because we just take the easy way out.
As for Malaysia, palm oil may turn out to be our saviour in future. The government should give incentives to this development and not try to introduce deterrent, like windfall tax to stifle the industry.