In The Name Of Allah, The Most Gracious and The Most Merciful

20061016

Expected

asSalamualaikum.

1:24 p.m. Opened TheStar Malaysia Online. Guess what I found? This article :

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Petrol price won’t be reduced

TAPAH: The Government will not reduce the price of petrol despite the global price of crude oil dropping to US$57.24 (RM210) a barrel.

Deputy Domestic Trade and Consumer Affairs Minister Datuk S. Veerasingam said this was because the Government still had to subsidise petrol to maintain the present price.

(Consumers are now paying RM1.92 a litre for petrol and RM1.58 for diesel.)

“With the lower crude oil prices, it means the Government will spend less on petrol subsidy. We hope to accumulate some savings and make up for the loss in income when the oil price shot up early this year,” he told reporters after handing out Deepavali goodies to 300 senior citizens here yesterday.

It was reported that the US crude oil traded at a session low of US$57.24 a barrel on Thursday. Opec had confirmed that production was in excess of one million barrels a day.

In March, the Government decided to increase petrol price by 30 sen a litre after the crude oil prices soared to US$62. 91 (RM232) a barrel.

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To be honest, I had already expected this. Not just me, but I think many other great thinkers in Malaysia (I'm just a normal Malaysian, never to be considered as a great thinker).

Imagine if the price of crude oil fell down, which company will be affected so much? PETRONAS, for sure. What is PETRONAS? The main GLC in Malaysia, aite? So, surely the government felt a big burden when the price of crude oil fell down.

Even if they used 'savings' as their main reason, I don't think anyone will actually believe that. The reason is quite simple, anyone playing stocks, or kept a non-stop look on our economy side, will surely see that our economy is alhamdulillah, expanding to a new limit as KLCI is already reachin 1000. Surely there will be no reasons such as savings to actually be used.

Apart from that, I really wonder, what do they really means by 'savings'? I wonder if the money will truly be used to cover the expenses (the subsidy paid by the Government earlier this year). Looking from the transparency aspect of Malaysian Government, with Malaysia listed among the top countries with high percentage of 'rasuah', surely this 'savings' could be in other different meaning.

Well, I do not know, as I am not part of the Government. But one thing is already assured, a simple conclusion we expected as obtained. Crude oil price increases, commrecial oil price increases. Crude oil price decreases, commercial oil price no changes. In other meaning, the price won't ever, ever go down?

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