Dr Mahathir Mohamd, the adviser for national car manufacturer Proton said, "the release of the list of individual AP recipients including Members of Parliament (MPs) in the Dewan Rakyat recently was nothing because they imported cars for their own use".

He said it was the policy of the government to allow diplomats or MPs to import cars for their personal use. There is an element here I don't understand.

Why should APs be given as a "privilege" for the more important diplomats or MPs to import cars for their personal use. Why can't they use the national car?

If the wakil rakyat and diplomats do not take pride in having the national car for their personal use, why should common people like us for whom they represent be forced to buy, support and subsidise a mongrel that is neither entirely Japanese nor Malaysian?

We are at the mercy of this national car policy inaugurated by the former premier.

By the simple expedience of using tariffs and excise duties to make the foreign cars at all times more expensive than the Proton, the national car may theoretically be forced unto all of us to buy no matter how high the price of Proton is pushed up to or how low the standard of manufacture and after sale service may be - all in the name of patriotism!

But shouldn't MPs and diplomats hold the banner of patriotism higher?

If a privilege has to be given, why not give them a 50 percent discount on Protons (instead of APs to buy foreign cars) and see how many of them will use it for their personal use?

Instead, the system gives them a way out by awarding of APs which many MPs on both sides of the political divide jump to take advantage of with alacrity.

As for the rest of us, we have to dig deeper into our pockets to buy the imported cars which are increasingly expensive to buy and maintain because of the relative weakness of the ringgit in relation to the currencies of their countries of manufacture.

Still, many of us are willing to do so even at great financial pain, and APs become for the few privileged car importers a license to fabulous riches with questions now raised - hinting at abuse - by Mahathir as to why some of these people are given such privilege when they do not even have showrooms.

There is definitely an irony here.

Isn't the root cause of this abuse in something which the former premier had himself created when he (1) forced an unwilling domestic market to support and subsidise his pet project whilst at the same time (2) providing an escape hatch for the MPs and diplomats and other elite by allowing them the privilege of APs to import foreign cars (the allocation of which he now questions)?

If an AP to buy a foreign car is a privilege, then the lack thereof so that one has to buy Proton is a burden which suckers like us have to carry.