{"id":2022,"date":"2008-06-11T07:00:09","date_gmt":"2008-06-10T23:00:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/poobalan.com\/blog\/borninmalaysia\/2008\/06\/11\/should-everyone-change-their-lifestyle-to-reduce-fuel-price-impact\/"},"modified":"2008-06-11T14:17:31","modified_gmt":"2008-06-11T06:17:31","slug":"should-everyone-change-their-lifestyle-to-reduce-fuel-price-impact","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/poobalan.com\/blog\/borninmalaysia\/2008\/06\/11\/should-everyone-change-their-lifestyle-to-reduce-fuel-price-impact\/","title":{"rendered":"Should EVERYONE change their lifestyle to reduce fuel price impact?"},"content":{"rendered":"

I first heard the suggestion about reducing salary of ministers via an email sent to TV3, last week. And voila, the PM announces a 10% reduction in entertainment allowance for cabinet ministers plus limitation in vacation destination. This is being followed<\/a> by other states such as Pahang, Terengganu, Malacca, and Sarawak. Sarawak even plans to reduce salary of its ministers, BN assemblymen, state speaker etc. by 10%, while Pahang MB hinted at 30% reduction of entertainment allowance.<\/p>\n

Lim Kit Siang was talking<\/a> about reducing more<\/strike>“why stop at just 10%” and asked<\/a> to cut allowance by half, so I wonder what the Pakatan states will do. Follow suit or do something else? How will the opposition MPs show their support? Will they sacrifice more or will they just sit back and blame the government for the situation?<\/p>\n

UMNO Youth\u00a0 member suggests<\/a> cutting 10% of salaries of all ministers, deputies an civil servants. Hmm, then how many civil servants will\u00a0 be under poverty line again?<\/p>\n

Looking at the responses on TV, print and online media (even Kalabakan MP Ghapur Salleh Kinabatangan MP Bung Mohktar<\/strike> acknowledged)<\/a>, the rakyat themselves are not fooled by this superficial reductions. They would feel that leaders should “leader by example” and not do damage limitation exercise by announcing such matters after people are angry over price hike.<\/p>\n

I personally think that all ministers and MPs should be forced to use public transport. Let them ride in RapidKL or Metrobus, along our Indonesia and Bangladeshi workers, students, wage earners, and pensioners. Let the ministers take Star LRT or Komuter, and get “close” to the rakyat. Komuter carries 90,000 people daily, LRT and Star 300,000 people, and RapidKL about 400,000 people according to this report<\/a>. Imagine the amount of PR the ministers and MPs can generate.<\/p>\n

Ask them to return the government cars and just make monthly claims for transportation costs. Oh, worried about crime and time being wasted? Well, welcome to the real world! If ministers in other countries can take public transport, I don’t see any valid reason why ours can’t do so. We are not a war-torn or under-developed country. Our police have high success rates. Our citizens are polite and helpful people. We have first class facilities. So, why not?<\/p>\n

Can leaders of respective parties who are cabinet ministers take the initiative and forfeit their salaries for the rest of the year? Hmm…that would be interesting. Leader is one who make the most sacrifice and lead by example, not one who ask others to “change lifestyle”.<\/p>\n

Now, how about our royal families? Perhaps they could also show that they care and willing to share burden with rakyat by donating all or part of their allowance back to the government. Their noble deeds should be published so that the rakyat know our royal families are the best in the world! Hmm… we may even enter Guiness Book of Records if this can be recorded. This came to mind after listening to our Agong’s speech on his birthday last week:<\/p>\n

KUALA LUMPUR: Be patient and prudent in facing the possible rise in food prices resulting from the recent fuel price hike.<\/p>\n

And if necessary, Malaysians should change their lifestyle to help reduce the impact of the price increases on them.<\/p>\n

This was the advice given by Yang di-Pertuan Agong Tuanku Mizan Zainal Abidin in his address telecast by Radio Television Malaysia in conjunction with his birthday today.<\/p>\n

“I acknowledge that a rise in prices puts great pressure on the livelihood of the people.<\/p>\n

“Nevertheless, I hope that the people will exercise patience and prudence in facing the situation,” he said.<\/p>\n

Tuanku Mizan hoped that the Government would monitor the situation and take every measure to ensure that the problem could be controlled and overcome.<\/p>\n

“God willing, our patience and prudence will enable us to ride this problem and emerge as a more mature and resilient people,” he said.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

source<\/a><\/p>\n

Again, I hope this does not fall under seditious category!<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I first heard the suggestion about reducing salary of ministers via an email sent to TV3, last week. And voila, the PM announces a 10% reduction in entertainment allowance for cabinet ministers plus limitation in vacation destination. This is being followed by other states such as Pahang, Terengganu, Malacca, and Sarawak. Sarawak even plans to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[112,115,84],"class_list":["post-2022","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-borninmalaysia","tag-discrimination","tag-economy","tag-funds"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/poobalan.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2022","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/poobalan.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/poobalan.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/poobalan.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/poobalan.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2022"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/poobalan.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2022\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/poobalan.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2022"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/poobalan.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2022"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/poobalan.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2022"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}