The government had wanted to restrict the amount of fuel sold to drivers of foreign vehicles but the idea was shelved after it realised the problems in implementing such a scheme.

So yesterday's Malaysiakini article came as somewhat of a shock when it was reported that the cap on foreign vehicles starts today.

Thus far there has been no campaign to advise motorists of the proposal and it seems the government is really short of both ideas and money.

Never mind that the new toy submarines will cost about RM300mil a year just to chase a few smugglers on the high seas.

This new foolish subsidy scheme creates many problems for both petrol stations and motorists.

Since most petrol stations operate with self-serve pumps, they need to either employ more workers to prevent over-pumping.

This restriction is redundant, as the customs also want to enforce the 20-litre tank rule when you exit.

Singaporean motorists will be hard hit as they have to leave Singapore with a three quarters full tank of fuel and that could be at least 40 litres in the larger cars.

I expect if this rule is enforced, hundreds of business owners will suffer like shopping malls, restaurants, car washes and even petrol stations.

Johor Bahru could turn into a ghost town and places like Kulai and even Malacca will be adversely affected.

In order for such a scheme to work, the ministry needs to devise a "zero gain" petrol plan for motorists. The strategy is that you will leave the country without any gain in the petrol quantity.

What the customs needs to do is to enforce the three-quarter full tank ruling for vehicles entering the country at all borders to make enforcement simple as that already covers the thousands of Singapore-registered cars.

So there is then no need to restrict the fuel sold to motorists at petrol stations.

When the motorists leave the country, the customs will then check (or spot check) the gas tanks to ensure that no surplus petrol is taken out.

To the enforcement authorities, I would advise the KISS principle (keep it simple, stupid) Asking petrol stations to be part of a hare-brained scheme is not tenable.