It needn't take expensive foreign consultants to come up with the solution that subsidy reductions will reduce the nation's bloated budget, PAS tells minister Nor Mohamed Yakcop.

NONE "Even a Kemas (social development agency) teacher can tell you that," Kelab Protes Barang Naik chairperson Mahfuz Omar ( right ) sniped at the minister, who is in charge of the Economic Planning Unit (EPU).

He called upon the government to put a halt to their planned subsidy reduction schedule and look at more structural problems instead.

Instead of such simplistic approaches, the PAS vice-president argued, the government should manage the economy and fiscal policies better, break up long-held monopolies and work hard to maintain subsidies despite rising global prices.

He was responding to Nor Mohamed who said yesterday that the federal government does not have the power to control rising prices as it is based on the international open market forces.

“The club is shocked that a minister (in charge of economic planning) would make such a statement. Is he saying that only one factor determines prices?

“Is the open world market responsible for the high price of kangkung ? Or ginger? Such that the price for a place of kangkung is soo high out there?” jibed Mahfuz.

‘Weaknesses in economic, fiscal policies’

Jokes aside, he argued that the government, through good fiscal policies and proper economic planning, can address the issue of rising prices without cutting subsidies.

“It is the duty of a good government to ensure that rising prices do not burden the rakyat like what is happening now.

azlan “The government uses the excuse of rising global prices to raise the cost of goods. But when the prices go down they do not follow global trend but use the excuse of stabilising prices,” alleged the PAS leader.

The real culprit, he said, are long-held monopolies on essential goods like sugar and rice and leakages in governance. Lack of competition, he said, led to the rising prices, and leakages to the inability of the government to maintain subsidies.

“The real issues are weaknesses in government economic planning and fiscal policies,” he said, pointing to massive spending in government direct-nego contracts to “selected companies” as opposd to cost saving open tenders, as one example.

He also disagreed with the government definition that lumped the RM42 billion or so annual social services expenditures like heathcare and education as subsidies.

“Those are government responsibilities, not subsidies,” he argued, saying that such creative accounting gave the government an excuse that subsidies are sky high when they are instead not comprehensive enough.

‘Bitter kuih for rakyat’

Mahfuz also expressed disappointment that an astute minister like Nor Mohamed failed to see the real structural issues facing our economy.

“If they raise the price of sugar, electricity and fuel, how come they do not expect the price of essential goods and foodstuff not to increase?” he asked.

Mahfuz also criticised another simplistic move by the government asking for the rakyat to “declare war” and boycott Ramadan bazaar stall owners who sell expensive foodstuffs.

“It is not really the traders’ fault. They have to use sugar in their kuih . All our kuih use sugar.

“If the premier’s wife Rosmah Mansur can come up with a recipe to make kuih using bitter root, then okay. We can have bitter kuih seri muka ,” joked Mahfuz.

Either way, he posited that it would be the rakyat that would be the one having to face a raw deal and eat bitter kuih .