PARLIAMENT Members of the public as well as village and community leaders designated as 'Friends of KPDNKK (Domestic Trade, Cooperatives and Consumerism Ministry) should keep an eye out if there are excessive price hikes, said Deputy Minister Henry Sum Agong.

“When there is any (profiteering), the ministry hopes the 'Friends of KPDNKK' would get involved and help the government monitor excessive price hikes.

“Members of the public should also be involved, if there is a problem with the price of goods they should report it to the ministry's enforcement division,” Henry told the House today.

He was responding to a supplementary question from Normala Abdul Samad (BN-Pasir Gudang) on how the ministry would curb the excessive hike of cooking oil prices.

Normala said she had received complaints about the sharp rise in cooking oil prices.

She said she had been informed that cooking oil that used to be priced at RM13.30 had gone up to as high as RM20.90.

This followed the rationalisation of cooking oil subsidies, with only 1kg packets of cooking oil still subsidised by the government.

Sin Chew Daily yesterday reported that with most of the subsidies removed, the price of some cooking oil products had gone up by 60 percent.

The daily said the price of a 5kg bottle of Red Eagle brand cooking oil was increased from RM14.70 to RM23.70 - a RM9 increase or 61.2 percent. The price of Red Eagle's 1kg bottle increased by RM2.05 (57 percent increase) while its 2kg bottle increased by RM3.35 (46 percent increase).

Despite the hike, Domestic Trade, Cooperatives and Consumerism Minister Hamzah Zainuddin said the price of mineral water consumed daily was still more expensive than price of cooking oil, when taking into account that each individual only needs about 1.5kg of cooking oil per month.