Is Malaysia turning into a robber-nation?

The Consumer Association of Penang has highlighted the acrimonious cost of drinking water. It is said that a 0.0006 sen cost for a glass of drinking water is being sold at a price of over 80,000 per cent profit margin.

Walk into a restaurant and you get colored tea. Order a roti canai and you get hardly a teaspoon of floor doled out into a ringgit over wafer thin roti bloated with baking soda. Take 'mee goreng' and it is filled with vegetables that are fit for the ducks.

You do not like this then go into the spanking up-market outlets and pay like a duke mate. A cup of coffee is now hovering at ten ringgit, just to start with mind you. It was only half that price hardly two years ago.

How about our wet markets? You can buy cheap fish if it is near rotting. And even that is at a price you would have paid for the cheaper fresh variety two years ago.

If you think the wet markets are ripping you off, try the pasar malams. It would not be hard to find them as you can smell the rot a hundred yards away. It is okay if you do not buy them as the ever present foreign workers are the steady customers.

Public transport

You want to get to work, go get a car. But pay the high taxes mate even if it is a home-made version. You want comfort and reliability? Yes you can have any car as long as you can pay for it – including the hefty duties that are almost the price of the car pegged by the exporter.

Okay lah, why not take the public transport? Has anyone not said anything about the most elusive, sardine-packed trains and buses? And have these companies also not kept up-ing their ticket prices endlessly?

And even if you have to pay the fare, let us not forget the escalating parking fees imposed silently. And if you do not want to pay the high parking rate, go park elsewhere and be sure to find the car clammed, towed away or with a summon ticket.

Return the money and all will be forgiven

Ah, then there is another degree of robber-nation. As a minister just announced, ‘return back the money you used to purchase some property illegitimately, overseas, and all things will return to normalcy’. Wow, that is even far better than tribal-justice in the Amazon. So tomorrow, all we have to do is just use the rakyat’s money first and then return it on the quiet and there will be no issue.

Back to the rakyat’s life. Take a taxi and be prepared for a short-change if you are not vigilant. Take a weekend walk in the malls and be prepared to be overwhelmed by the perennial ‘mega’ and ‘jumbo’ sales and discounts.

From 50% to 70% discounts the banners scream. But after all the discount, the price of a shoe or dress would still end up being more expensive than what you would have paid for last year.

No more feeling

In a nutshell, are Malaysians so numbed by the lack of values and insatiable desire to make more money that they have no more qualms about price hikes and cheating and robbing?

Are leaders so blinded and drugged with the mantra of have-power-through-more-money that they have ended up being so numbed to the point that everything is being turned out to be mercenary deals?

Take education mate. You want free schooling, ok no problem. You have it. But do not fiorget that you must pay foir the school books that keep changing every year, not forgetting the uncountable versions of workbooks that are a must for every subject.

Then of course since schooling is free, you must pay through your nose to put your children through private tuition. No tuition, no pass exam lah. Right or wrong?

What about the building industry? Remember the saga of the Highland Towers? Or how about the leaking parliament despite millions spent on repairs and maintenance?

Everyone out to make money

And so in Malaysia today everyone is out to make more money – even at the expense of their own fellow citizens. Is this too far-fetched a point made?

If not, how come citizens in neighboring countries are not clamoring and crying for pay hikes and eating near rotting fish? Food prices do not even need any policing. Buyers do not even haggle over prices at the wet market. You do not pay for drinking water and you have a whole jug to yourself.

Pity. Pity the untraveled Malaysians. They are drowning in their own mantra of ‘you-rob-me, i-rob-you’ while the politicians continue to dispense a justice philosophy that even the Amazon tribes would find it hard to assimilate.

Wonder where we would all be if this country was not blessed with petroluem, tin, rubber and bell weather? For despite all the blessings we are robbing each other to makee ends meet.

Malaysia Chronicle