PARLIAMENT The government has no plans to abolish the petrol subsidy as it still has the financial capacity to bear the subsidy.

Deputy Finance Minister Ahmad Maslan said the government would instead ensure that the rationalisation measure for the fuel would benefit the target groups.

He was replying to a supplementary question from Bung Moktar Radin (BN-Kinabatangan) in the Dewan Rakyat in Kuala Lumpur today.

Bung Moktar had asked whether the government was prepared to abolish the fuel subsidy altogether and replace it with an increase in the Bantuan Rakyat 1Malaysia (BR1M) payment.

Ahmad said the subsidy rationalisation would be implemented in stages and not in a hasty manner, taking into consideration the burden faced by the people.

Earlier, to a question from Alice Lau Kiong Yieng (DAP-Lanang), he said the government had taken several enforcement measures to curb the smuggling of subsidised diesel.

These include issuing a directive to all petrol stations that the sale of diesel is only for vehicle fuel tanks and not to fill containers like barrels and drums except with approval from the controller through the Controlled Item Permits, and that petrol stations which are within a 50km radius from the border are allowed to sell only 20 litres of fuel to a foreign-registered vehicle.

Ahmad said the government also carried out concerted operations involving  enforcement agencies like the Customs Department, Anti-Smuggling Unit, General Operations Force, Malaysian Maritime Enforcement Agency, Road Transport Department and the Malaysian Armed Forces to curb smuggling.

He said Rela members were stationed at 45 fuel stations in four states bordering Thailand to prevent the smuggling of subsidised diesel to the neighbouring country.

In addition, he said, petroleum companies were ordered to send in the sales data from their fuel stations on a daily basis for monitoring purpose, especially on those fuel stations which purchased diesel in large volumes.

- Bernama