The government has failed to respond properly to the recent cooking oil and flour shortages, DAP secretary-general Lim Guan Eng alleged today.

“The creation of a national stockpile of essential goods and commodities to soften the impact of rising prices and ensure stable supply by the government is an admission of failure”, he said in a statement.

Putting the blame on Finance Minister and Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, Lim added that the shortage problem highlighted poor delivery and performance by the government.

“The shortages occurred despite Malaysia being the largest exporter of palm oil (14.4 million tonnes at more than 50% of world exports in 2006) and the Finance Ministry co-ordinating the imposition of the Cooking Oil Subsidy Scheme (Coss) to ensure stable supply and prices.

“What happened to the RM855 million in Coss collection from oil palm planters last year that is supposed to maintain low prices and stable supply by compensating losses suffered by cooking oil packagers?,” asked Lim.

Lim believes that Abdullah’s multiple portfolios is one major factor that had contributed to the problems as he has too much on his plate.

PM’s negligence causes crime rise

Apart from the shortage of essential goods, the rise in crime too became the subject of criticism and Lim again pinned the blame on the prime minister as he is also the internal security minister.

“His lack of time in the Internal Security Ministry saw serious crimes rising by 13.4 per cent nationwide last year compared to 2006, particularly gang robbery without the use of firearms rising by more than 159 per cent, gang robbery with firearms up by 15%,

“Rapes up by 30% and molest cases up by 12%. With 3,177 rapes and 2,320 outraging of modesty cases last year, this means that there are 8.7 rapes and 6.4 women molested daily last year. In other words, 15 women are raped and molested a day last year,” noted Lim.

The prime minister had announced that more closed circuit television cameras (CCTV) would be installed in public places in order to suppress the rise of crimes but Lim argued that this is not enough.

“What is the point ? Those CCTVs already put up are a waste of funds as they do not work and images are blurry.

“DAP regrets that Abdullah has refused to consider DAP's proposal to put 100,000 more policemen to patrol the streets and set up the Independent Police Complaints and Miconduct Commission(IPCMC) to promote effectiveness and efficiency in crime prevention

Lim said Abdullah should give up his ministerial posts and give way for others to fill in so that both the ministries will be headed by full-time ministers capable of concentrating on their jobs.