The price of RON95 and RON97 fuel has gone down by 35 sen per litre while the diesel also saw a 30 sen per litre drop since Jan 1, 2015.
When making the announcement on twitter, Deputy Finance Minister Ahmad Maslan also posed the following question to traders:
“The price of oil has gone down again, when will business reduce the price of their goods?” “The rakyat is waiting.”
Sadly, a week after the petrol price drop, we have failed to see any traders echo the call of Ahmad Maslan. However, the outcome is neither disappointing nor surprising. Actually, one will only be taken by surprise if there is any trader who heeds the advice of Ahmad Maslan to reduce price.
In May last year, Ahmad Maslan also claimed that there would be no increases in 48 percent of the goods and prices on 42 percent of the goods would drop, after the implementation of GST.
Assuming the method of calculation adopted by Ahmad Maslan is accurate and GST will indeed reduce the costs of production and operation for some items, does Ahmad Maslan still of the view that the traders will be so generous to reduce price of their products after April 1, 2015?
If Ahmad Maslan has failed to charm the traders to reduce the price of their goods following the petrol price drop, how is he going to ensure that the traders will do so when GST comes into play?
Perhaps, Ahmad Maslan should just stop daydreaming.