NO QUICK FIXES PLEASE! TARGETED FUEL SUBSIDIES MAY ONLY GIVE THE ELITES MORE POWER OVER THE POOR, WARNS EX MP
Written by Wong Choon Mei, PoliticsNow!
KUALA LUMPUR (politicsnowmy) - Another political leader in the country has urged Malaysian premier Anwar Ibrahim not to go for "quick fixes" by slashing fuel subsidies - and instead move "robustly" to transition the country away from fossil fuels to green energy.
In an interview with PoliticsNow! ,former MP and well-known civil rights activist Tian Chua warned there were insufficient social safety nets in place to buffer the poor and middle-income from the rocketing inflation and rising costs of living overtaking the country.
The local currency, the ringgit, is among the worst performing in the region, breaching 25-year lows and is still trolling historic depths - while national debt has soared to above a trillion ringgit.
The 76-year-old Anwar, who is also Finance Minister, has come under tremendous pressure to step up financial reforms. Ironic or not, his Pakatan Harapan coalition had promised voters lower petrol prices as part of their campaign manifesto during the 2022 general election that swept them to power.
"I would agree that government has to phase out the subsidies for petrol and diesel, this is this is some positive flow. However, since we are so dependent and we have been very, very slow in transforming our energy source to other alternative, especially green energy - this [move] would definitely bring a very strong impact to the livelihoods of people. Especially for the middle class as well as the lower class," said Tian, who is also spokesman for the Palestine Solidarity Secretariat.
TARGETED SUBSIDIES - GIVING THE ELITES MORE POWER OVER THE POOR?
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He also questioned the effectiveness of the plan by the Anwar administration to use 'targeted' subsidies to reduce government spending, warning it could open the door to abuse and corruption by the elites against the rest of the populace.
"We are yet to see something more practical in terms of social safety. The so-called targeted subsidies sounds [not good] for most people and who will receive the target? Who are the targets that we are going to give?" asked Tian.
"And can we afford to see in the market two different prices? There's a group of people who are so-called targeted who buy big goods at a certain price. And the other groups will be buying for a full price. This is going to create a lot of confusion in the market."
"And when you choose target, then you give the decision maker, the political elite, a lot of power to decide who will get the, the subsidies. And that's not good for transparency sake."
NO QUICK FIXES, PLEASE
The former Member of Parliament for Batu called for a much greater push towards green energy - pointing out that current government strategy was still way behind what was needed to wean fuel consumers from relying on government subsidies without punishing the poor and the middle-class with financial hardship.
"It is important that first government must in a very robust way transform our energy source as soon as possible and to reduce the dependency of of using petrol or the government cut this. And we have to understand that most of our electricity power is still powered by diesel and coal and all the other sources and we are only talking about I think the next 10 years to transform into gas and [this] is only gas and we haven't gotten - even further than that. So I think this is a bit slow.
"Those people who are are lower income, those people who are [the ones who] need income, they are the one who will suffer.
"I mean, cutting, cutting subsidies, budget austerity for me, yes, I think it's a quick fix, right? While the the the measure may be necessary, but normally often the victims are those people who are those who have no power."
At 9.01am on Wednesday (May 29), the ringgit eased to 4.6960/6995 versus the greenback compared to Tuesday’s close of 4.6890/6910. Meanwhile, the total government debt as at the end of December 2023 was RM1. 17 trillion or 64.3 per cent of GDP. Debt grew by 8.6 per cent in 2023, lower than the growth of 10.2 per cent in 2022.
Written by Wong Choon Mei, PoliticsNow!
https://politicsnowmy.blogspot.com/
https://www.youtube.com/@polnow
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