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Press Statement

by Lim Guan Eng

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(Petaling Jaya, Friday): The nation-wide cooking oil shortage is proof of another dismal failure of good governance by BN to provide basic needs to the rakyat despite Malaysia being the largest exporter of palm oil in the world. I had personally inspected some supermarkets after receiving complaints from consumers, which confirmed that cooking oil is no longer available. Shortage of cooking oil has caused hardship to many consumers and businessmen.

The BN government should be ashamed at the cooking oil shortage as it is a great irony that we are short of cooking oil even though we are the largest palm oil producer and exporter in the world. Such failure is inexcusable when the government had already imposed a Cooking Oil Subsidy Scheme (COSS) upon oil palm plantation owners who had to pay COSS amounting to more than RM 700 million yearly to cooking oil manufacturers in the country. Since COSS is sufficient to subsidise the cost of cooking oil production, why then is there a cooking oil shortage in the country?

DAP demands that the Minister for Domestic Trade and Industry Datuk Shafie Apdal explain and take action against those responsible for the shortage, including errant government officials who do not have the foresight to prevent such a shortage. If a shortage can happen a month before Chinese New Year, there is every likelihood that this will be repeated during the festive season.