Federal Territories Minister Datuk Seri Tengku Adnan Tengku Mansor accused pro-opposition middlemen of deliberately increasing the prices of goods and services, in order to incite hatred against Barisan Nasional (BN). He made the preposterous claim that “they have played a major role in siding with the opposition and inciting the rakyat’s hatred towards Barisan Nasional”.
That is the most ridiculous piece of excuse and accusation made by a BN Minister to date which represents the sheer bankruptcy of ideas in the Federal Cabinet to deflect blame for the tide of rising prices in the country.
If Pakatan Rakyat indeed controlled the economy through these “middlemen”, Barisan Nasional would have lost Putrajaya in the last general election. In fact, why wait for elections to be over before these alleged “pro-opposition middlemen” raise prices? If stirring discontent against BN is the objective, they should have done it before the elections, and not after!
It is of the biggest irony when the Minister pointed out unscrupulous middlemen raising prices because it has been BN policy over the past 3 decades to cultivate crony businessmen to dominate, monopolize and control many basic goods and services.
The price of rice has been rising because Bernas Bhd, a private company owned by Tan Sri Syed Mokhtar Al-Bukhary was given the monopoly right to import rice on behalf of rice-traders, making fat and easy profits while causing the price of these rice to rise. The same applies many other basic goods such as sugar.
Tenaga Nasional Bhd was forced by the BN Government to purchase a majority of its electricity from Independent Power Producer at prices significantly higher than what it could produce on its own, causing the tariffs to increase.
The prices of medicine in our hospitals are up to 148% higher than in Australia, because the Government forces our hospitals to purchase them through the designated “middleman”, Pharmaniaga Bhd.
Hundreds, if not thousands of projects are awarded annually by the Government at higher cost and lower quality purely because they are given via our renowned “Ali-baba” system. In this system, the a crony middlemen gets awarded an inflated contract and subcontracts substantial portions of the works, if not all of it to actual businesses to carry out the work.
One such infamous project is the RM482 million Shah Alam Hospital which was awarded to Sunshine Fleet Sdn Bhd, but was sub-contracted lock, stock and barrel to a subcontractor for RM451 million in 2007. The project has stalled with no visibility of completion despite hundreds of millions of ringgit paid.
Hence these are all the pro-BN cronies and middlemen who have been causing inflated and rising prices in the country. What’s more, when the Government spends wastefully and extravagantly like the above, the country’s debt rises in tandem, forcing massive subsidy cut and the painful inflation we are facing today.
Datuk Seri Tengku Adnan claims that the pro-opposition “middlemen have consistently preached that if Barisan Nasional wins, the prices of goods and services will increase as BN stands for Barang Naik”. Let me challenge the Federal Territories Minister to name any such “pro-opposition businessman” who had raised prices of basic goods and services needed by Malaysians at large.
If the Minister is unable to do so, he should withdraw his remarks and stop looking for kangkung excuses to cover up for BN. Instead, he must demand that the Cabinet review or terminate all the above BN-crony monopoly and middlemen contracts which cause prices to increase and the rakyat to suffer.