The best thing Pak Lah has done: Drastic reduction of petrol subsidies

rejoiced as much as the next Malaysian when the incumbent governing party lumpuh over the March 8 elections.

But here I must make a stand. I think Pak Lah allowing for the drastic reduction of petrol subsidies is one of the best things he has done since becoming Prime Minister. Clearly it is not a popular move, and clearly it won’t bring outwardly beneficial consequences to the rakyat. And so much so sudden. But analysts say that is wise - so that you only face the anger once, rather than staggered anger over a few months. Now, if the government can survive this volatile position it has brought itself into, it will have much more leeway and space in terms of using that surplus money generated from the new subsidy scheme.

What are the next decisions? To me that will be the imperative questions. It’s what Pak Lah does next that becomes of immense importance.

For example. Partly why people are very angry about the sudden price hike is that there is much hidden information about how the oil money moves in and out of Petronas. Some people are clamouring for financial information about the national oil company. If Pak Lah goes transparent about it, whatever the information looks like (to his favour or not), that will be a big plus. The point is the decision, the action taken.

Pak Lah, listen here! NO MORE WORDS. No more “the government will do this or that”. We want to hear “the government has done this or that”. Past tenses. No more future tenses. Get it? We’d rather you do things quietly in the background than to say things loudly in the surface. For your own career’s sake – which, oddly enough, is rather tied up with the country’s too.

Whatever other decisions you make, announce it. If you run into problems with the new subsidy plan, announce it. If you know someone is taking advantage of the situation, declare it. Say this is where we are right now. Even if you don’t have the answers. Say you don’t have the answers then. Honesty is the most important value that will keep this government alive now.

Basically what we the people want to know is this. Now that you have billions of ringgit to play around with, what are you going to do to improve the state of the country? What do we want to improve? Why, read the newspapers, the blogs. People are sounding it out every day. And by the way, few people believe that you only get RM13.7 bil out of this. A higher global price for oil means that Petronas is raking it via exports too - that’s basically what so many people are saying. We want to know what will be done with that.

Honesty counts.

In the meantime, I think having the UMNO huddle-up hush-hush tell-all and let’s-be-honest-to-each-other meeting for two days now is really bad timing.

Meanwhile, the sincere intentions of certain Pakatan Rakyat figures might derail whatever little good intentions that trickle out of the BN government. I was saddened to hear that they are organising protests. It’s just too simplistic. And what’s this 100,000 people protest I’m hearing about? If that amount of people turn up for a protest, I will begin to lose faith in the Malaysia I thought I saw on March 8 and since.

Seriously, to the BN government: Show us some sign of intelligence and wisdom. You will get at least this individual’s support. If not … well, you know.

SEBASTIAN NG
The Cicak

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