Fuel dealers train guns on Najib for losses

A petrol dealers body says thousands of its members suffered due to the BN government’s policy on fuel prices.

PETALING JAYA: The Petrol Dealers Association of Malaysia (PDAM) today praised the Pakatan Harapan government for raising their commission by 3 sen per litre, while blaming former prime minister Najib Razak for causing thousands of dealers to go bust.

It said under Barisan Nasional, commission remained stagnant for the past decade, affecting dealers’ income and forcing many of them to shut down.

“Many dealers had to close their business, a lot of workers lost their source of income, and even more families fell victim to Najib’s government, which never took the necessary steps to correct the situation,” PDAM said.

PDAM also took Najib to task for claiming that the government was helping dealers to profit from the new petrol prices.

“It gives an illusion that petrol dealers are getting RM30 million every month.

“But if you divide this by 3,500 stations nationwide, the average increase in gross profit is RM8,500 every month for each station, while the increased cost for dealers for the past 10 years is more than RM10,000 a month,” it said.

The association said only 10% are in the high-sales category exceeding 600,000 litres a month, 67% in the low-to-middle sales category below 400,000 litres a month, while 20% sell below 200,000 litres a month.

“Those who sell below 200,000 litres a month earned about RM1,500 monthly,” it added.

It said the previous administration was aware of the impact on 32,000 fuel traders nationwide after the weekly float system for RON95 petrol was introduced.

It also said this was made worse by increase in costs of hiring workers, credit card charges and rental to oil companies.

PDAM said by BN’s own statistics, many dealers were qualified for cash aid under BR1M as they made under RM4,000 monthly.

Yesterday, the government re-introduced the weekly float pricing system, causing the price of RON95 petrol to drop from RM2.20 per litre to RM1.93 per litre.

However, Najib said the retail price for RON95 should have been RM1.90 and not RM1.93 per litre. -FMT