Quiz for the day: Which to cut first - subsidies, BN or Najib?

EDITOR'S PICK The quiz question for today is which expense would you cut first:

A. 10 Billion in subsidies to all Malaysians

B. 17 Billion in Government Administrative Costs

C. 28 Billion in Wastage

If you thought the answer was C followed by B, you would be wrong. As far as the BN is concerned, they must cut A. Even though cutting A would cause untold hardships to many Malaysian households. Even though cutting A would cause the price of petrol to shoot up, thus causing the prices of food, transport and all other essential items to rise in tandem.

It is very strange that the BN government would penalise Malaysians when the price of oil goes up. Malaysia is, after all, a net oil-exporting country. When the price of oil rises, Malaysia makes more profit from its exports. As a net exporter Malaysia makes more than it loses from its imports of lower-grade oil for its domestic use. So why should the average Malaysian have to pay more? It makes absolutely no sense at all.

If we planted a lot of cabbage, would we export it all, and then import cabbage from somewhere else and claim that we were ‘subsidizing’ cabbage? No, we would sell the cabbage to domestic consumers, and export only the excess!

There would then be no ‘subsidies’ to worry about. Malaysia is not subsidizing petrol at all, the BN is simply playing with numbers to fool the public. There is absolutely no justification to raise petrol prices in Malaysia, not as long as it is a net-exporter of oil.

Finance minister or Mad Hatter

So why this focus on ‘cutting subsidies’?

Because to cut Administrative costs, you need competent Ministers, and the BN has none. Nor has the BN shown any inclination to clamp down on corruption; while the MACC is distrusted, and it's reputation made worse by custodial deaths.

One of the most damning indictments against the MACC and the BN is their inaction on Taib Mahmud. Surely an investigation is warranted in Malaysia when one is on-going in Switzerland, yet there is no sign of any. And so the BN ignores their own costs, they ignore wastage and corruption, and they focus instead on reducing subsidies, essentially penalizing Malaysians for the BN's own incompetence!

Of course, Prime Minister Najib Razak sitting on his plush chair in his palatial Putrajaya home, paid for and maintained by struggling Malaysian taxpayers, would not feel the pinch. No, he may traipse all around the world, wife in tow, from Qatar to New York, achieving we have no idea what.

Nothing ever seems to come of his trips, except big fat bills for the Treasury. And he seems too terribly fond of travelling, while the country groans under the weight of his economic mismanagement.

For all that we can tell, he may not be the Finance Minister at all; he may have secretly appointed the Mad Hatter.

Who can rescue Malaysia

Witness this week's events alone, and you will not think that comparison exaggerated.

The BN threatens to raise the price of petrol because it claims the subsidies are getting too high.

In the same breath it abolishes the toll in Cheras, without disclosing how much Metramac was paid to give up their tollgate.

Malaysians are told to tighten their belts, while Najib loosens his at over-laden buffet tables in New York City.

Kedahans are offered RM500 each in compensation for the floods, long after the event, but ever so close to the elections.

So, which one is it?

Is the government short of money, or are they loaded with it?

If they are short, how are they going around announcing mega-project after mega-project? Are they just announcements for the sake of mainstream media headlines?

If they are over-funded, why burden already suffering Malaysians?

Or is an entire government suffering from some form of multiple-personality disorder, spending madly one minute, and grabbing money out of Malaysian's thin wallets the next?

No amount of spin, or made-up headlines, are going to change the fact that the people are paying more and more for food, for essential items and for transportation; while salaries remain flat or worse.

Only a clean, competent government and a responsible finance minister can rescue Malaysia from this road to ruin.

Under the BN administration, Malaysians have neither. - Malaysia Chronicle