Time to review all subsidy schemes
The government announces massive allocations for subsidy schemes for ordinary people, but the cooking oil subsidy issue shows that the bulk of the benefits have gone elsewhere.
By TK Chua
The Second Finance Minister has finally clarified that the oil subsidies to be removed are those meant for “export sale”. Malaysians will, therefore, continue to benefit from cooking oil subsidy from the government.
This is what I don’t understand: Are we supposed to subsidise our cooking oil exports in the first place? It would appear that only now is the government trying to stop it. So may I know what has been the quantum of export subsidy involved so far and for how long has this been going on?
I think too many subsidy schemes have been blatantly abused to the detriment of the real target groups. In this case, we have not only subsidised foreign consumers but also our exporters and businessmen to make more money.
What took us so long to realise this? I don’t believe those in the Treasury, Ministry of Domestic Trade, Co-operatives and Consumerism and the Ministry of International Trade and Industry could be so dumb.
I was told fuel subsidies for fishermen, too, are siphoned off in a big way. We spend more on fuel subsidies but the amount of fish landed by local fishermen has become less.
I would have thought curtailing abuse of subsidies would be an on-going process. We should not wait for the government to be in a dire financial position before taking action.
Subsidies should only be targeted at those who are deserving and eligible. If we have too many leakages, abuses and corruption, it is better not to have it.
Year in and year out, we hear of massive allocations for subsidies as if the government has done us a great favour. It takes the cooking oil subsidy to make us realise that the bulk of the benefits have actually gone elsewhere.
Regardless of the government’s present financial position, I think it is time to have a thorough review of all our subsidy schemes. It is time to examine the leakages, abuses and corruption involved. Sometimes I think subsidy schemes have probably benefited the corrupted officials, businessmen and those who are in the position to arbitrage more than the real targeted groups.
It is useless for the government to show big budgets for subsidies and other welfare programmes when the bulk of the benefits have gone elsewhere.
TK Chua is an FMT reader.
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