An academician today takes deputy Finance minister (DFM) Ahmad Maslan to task over what he described as untruth explanation on oil prices in Malaysia compared to neighbouring countries.
Attempting to soothe public anger over the recent fuel price hike, Ahmad pointed out that Malaysia is the 8th lowest in the world in terms of price of fuel after Venezuela, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Egypt, United Arab Emirates, Iran and Nigeria.
“Are we trying to deny the fact that the price of petrol in Brunei, Qatar, Bahrain, Algeria, Sudan, Libya and Oman is cheaper than Malaysia? Why Ahmad did not disclose the petrol prices in those countries?” UKM School of History, Politics and Strategy lecturer Dr Mohamad Agus Yusoff responded to Ahmad’s reasoning in a Facebook posting today.
The outspoken academician regarded Ahmad’s argument as misleading and an attempt to fool the people.
Agus also lashed out at Ahmad for comparing the petrol price in Malaysia, an oil producing nations with neighbouring countries such as Singapore, Thailand, Indonesia and Philippines that have limited oil resources.
“This is why I regard that his statement has concealed the facts to confuse, or to fool the people,” he added.
In his article, Agus also lectured Ahmad on making honest comparison between countries.
“For example, why not we compare Malaysia’s car prices with Singapore and Indonesia? With our overpriced cost in housing, are our houses the cheapest in the world? Similar comparison can be made on our debts,” Agus said.
“Now, do we dare to say our household debt is the eighth lowest in the world, and also the price of our cars and houses, are we the lowest in the world? I am arguing this way to show that I am rejecting illogical data provided by Ahmad that claimed Malaysia is the eight lowest in fuel price,” he stressed.
Apart from that, Agus also hit out at Ahmad’s claim that the fuel price hike was to enable the government to target subsidies particularly for medium and low-income earners by increasing the 1Malaysia People's Aid (BR1M).
“I don't see the connection between fuel price hike and BR1M. BR1M is given for what? If it is meant to help the poor, why BR1M is taken back by hiking fuel prices?” he sniped.
- harakahdaily.net
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