Media Statement
by Ronnie Liu

(Petaling Jaya, Thursday):It appears to us that the BN Government has not learned a lesson from the recent Sarawak State Election. Losing merely 9 seats to the Opposition (DAP 6. PKR 1, SNAP 1, Independent 1) does not seem to change its arrogance or “couldn’t give a damn” attitude towards ordinary Malaysians.

The RM4.4billion savings from the fuel hike has been wiped out as admitted by the Cabinet, but its negative impact has just begun to hit the men in the streets. Before you know it, the Cabinet has accepted the proposal by TNB to raise the electricity tariffs by a whopping 12%!

The PM and its Cabinet ministers have the cheek to claim that the lower income families were not affected. In fact, the lower income families will always be worst-off as they will be certainly badly hit by any price increase of goods and services, directly or indirectly, due to either the fuel hike or increased tariffs. In any event, the rich ones were always in a better position to find their ways to make up for their losses.

This increase of electricity tariffs was reportedly help to save RM1.5 billion per annum for TNB. This is not a big amount to gain if one compares to the negative impact we Malaysians are going to bear collectively.

Why can’t the Cabinet decides to use profits made by Petronas to help lessen the burden of all Malaysians, instead of allowing only its cronies to continue using these funds for bail-outs?

Malaysians and domestic economy in general were already badly affected by the recent fuel hike and higher interest rate (3.5%). This increase of electricity bills will only add on to the burden of many more shoulders.

We urge all Malaysians to come out in full force on Sunday morning (10am) to the KLCC to say it “loud and clear” that we Malaysians do not agree with the hikes of fuel prices and power rates. You can make a difference.

(25/05/2006)