KUALA LUMPUR - Putrajaya must fully disclose the formula used for pricing fuel after pump prices for petrol fell by just a few sen despite oil prices diving by over a third this year, PKR’s Rafizi Ramli said today.
Pointing out that the average crude oil price fell by 27.6 per cent globally last month, Rafizi said Malaysia’s fuel prices this month should have reflected this change instead of going down no more than 9 sen and even rising in the case of diesel.
“Unfortunately, Barisan Nasional’s announcement that the RON95 petrol price only dropped by 1.7 per cent, RON97 only dropped by 3.5 per cent, while diesel is up one per cent.
“The public is wondering why there is such a big gap between the reference price in the global market and the price set by Barisan Nasional in Malaysia although the price is fixed according to global market prices,” he said in a statement today.
Rafizi blamed the relatively smaller drop in fuel prices on the government’s allegedly opaque pricing method, claiming the government mandates fixed profit and cost margins for oil companies that tack on 30 sen to the price of every litre of RON95 sold.
He then insisted that Putrajaya publish detailed figures regularly to dispel the perception that the BN administration was profiting by imposing higher fuel prices on the public amid falling global prices.
Rafizi said PKR will also set up its own team to monitor fuel prices to ensure the Malaysian rate reflects the global market prices, adding that the political party would reveal each week the Means of Platts Singapore (MOPS) figures and other government-guaranteed costs for fuel prices.
MOPS is the variable value in Putrajaya’s automatic pricing mechanism used in its managed float on fuel prices.
Under the system that came into effect today, the government no longer provides subsidies for petrol and diesel, with prices fixed monthly according to a “managed float” system based on global crude oil prices and currency exchange rates.
According to Rafizi, the average price of the Brent crude oil used as a pricing benchmark here has fallen from US$105 (RM360.81) per barrel to around US$ 76 (RM261.15) per barrel this year.
He expressed suspicion that the relatively minor drop in fuel prices against the falling global prices meant that the government was silently imposing a “petrol tax” on Malaysians.
On Saturday, the government announced the December retail prices for RON95 petrol and RON97 petrol will go down by four sen per litre and nine sen per litre to RM2.26 per litre and RM2.46 per litre respectively, while diesel prices would go up from RM2.20 per litre to RM2.23 per litre.
On November 21, Putrajaya declared that it will scrap all fuel subsidies from this December, in favour of the “managed float” mechanism that will see fuel prices going up or going down based on the movement of global crude oil price in the preceding month. -Malay Mail
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