Oil hike: PAS wants special Parliament session
Malaysiakini.com
Jun 9, 2008
Rahmah Ghazali

Opposition party PAS today called for a special parliament session to be held as soon as possible to debate the recent
MCPX
fuel price hike.

"We are hoping for the special session to be held by early next week," said PAS MP for Kuala Selangor Dr Dzulkefly Ahmad.

The next parliamentary session begins on June 23.

pas parliament session request pc 090608 03Earlier, Dzulkefly joined the party's Youth chief and chief whip in Parliament Salahuddin Ayub and Dr Lo' Lo' Ghazali to hand a memorandum to Parliament administrator Kamaruddin Mohamed Baria.

Dzulkefly described the sharp spike in fuel prices as an "extreme action" taken by the government against the public and business community.

He said the knock-on effects from the increase would also take their toll on social issues including higher crime rate.

"This would be giving a negative and critical impact on the public," he added.

The government announced the drastic price hike last Wednesday, increasing the price of petrol by a whopping 40.6 percent from RM1.92 per litre to RM2.70.

At the same time the price of diesel was increased by 63.3 percent - from RM1.58 per litre to RM2.58.

Several protests have taken place throughout the country since the announcement of the price hike.

Opened the floodgates

Dzulkefly, who also heads the PAS research centre, said the government had "opened the floodgates of inflation" and they no longer have the power "to close it."

petrol price hike new price 040608"They (government) have no mechanism of control as it has affected the structure (of economy) whereby causing inflation," he said.

He further described the current policy as "reckless" and urged the government to protect the public and the business community from the repercussions.

The three parliamentarians have also given an early notice that they would organise a peaceful demonstration on June 13 from Kampung Baru to Kuala Lumpur City Centre (KLCC) to protest against the fuel hike.

Dzulkefly further pointed out that the people would lose their purchasing power if the price of goods are increased to streamline with the newly-priced fuel.

"There will also be recession coming in (soon)," he said, adding that higher inflation would make the industries resort to retrenching their workers.

On the business sector, he said they would have less demand when the consumers "are trying to cut cost of everything."

"When there is no demand, then there would be no supply," he lamented.

'Shock therapy'

The fuel increase, he added, was a "shock therapy" on the public and was "definitely not expected."

He also stressed that the government did not justify their action because as a net exporter of, it failed to manage the nation’s wealth effectively.

He also dismissed the claim by the country’s biggest oil company Petronas that the oil would dry up in a few years time as "baseless."

The PAS MP also said the country had a 1.8 replacement capacity when the local producers have used up the petroleum resource.

"So don’t ever talk about this (issue)," he added.

Lo’ Lo’ also called for the nation’s wealth to be managed more effectively. "So that we can preserve our heritage for the next generations,"she added.

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