Cooking oil shortage is another proof of bad governance to provide basic needs

I have recently received many complaints from eateries, hawkers, consumers and petty traders that they are facing shortage of cooking oil and it’s continuous shortage could cause serious impacts on their business revenues and food pricings.

The nation-wide cooking oil shortage which plagued the country is not something new as previously; we faced similar shortage in diesel, sugar and flour supply.

It is proof of another dismal failure of good governance by BN to provide basic needs to the rakyat despite Malaysia being the largest exporter of palm oil in the world.

I had personally inspected some supermarkets, mini-markets and markets in Sungai Way, SEA Park and other places in Petaling Jaya after receiving complaints from consumers, which confirmed that cooking oil is no longer available. Shortage of cooking oil has caused hardship to many consumers and businesspersons.

However, it was discovered that cooking oil supply to major hypermarkets remained undisrupted and this raise question on the double standard. Some retailers informed that they can only make profit between 5 sen to 10 sen for 5kg cooking oil and that there is very little profit they can make. Many of them are reluctant to order much from wholesaler.

The BN government should be ashamed at the cooking oil shortage as it is a great irony that we are short of cooking oil even though we are the largest palm oil producer and exporter in the world.

Such failure is inexcusable when the government had already imposed a Cooking Oil Subsidy Scheme (COSS) upon oil palm plantation owners who had to pay COSS amounting to more than RM 700 million yearly to cooking oil manufacturers in the country. Since COSS is sufficient to subsidise the cost of cooking oil production, why then is there a cooking oil shortage in the country?

DAP demands that the Minister for Domestic Trade and Industry Datuk Shafie Apdal explain and take action against those responsible for the shortage, including errant government officials who do not have the foresight to prevent such a shortage.