Malaysia’s fuel price hike exposes minister’s racist remarks: DAP chief

KUALA LUMPUR — Democratic Action Party (DAP) secretary-general and Penang Chief Minister Lim Guan Eng said yesterday that the fuel rate hike announced by Putrajaya this month has exposed the “racist lies” of Agriculture and Agro-based Industry Minister Ismail Sabri Yaakob.

The minister recently came under fire for accusing Chinese-owned businesses of indiscriminately raising their prices despite lowered costs of production brought about by falling fuel prices.

In a statement, Mr Lim asked Mr Ismail whether he planned to single out the Chinese community again for blame over the rising prices of goods. He also slammed the United Malays National Organisation’s (UMNO) Barisan Nasional (BN) partners — Malaysian Chinese Association (MCA) and Parti Gerakan Rakyat Malaysia (Gerakan) — for refusing to censure their coalition colleague for the controversial remarks last month.

“The rise in petrol prices by 25 cents today exposes once again the racist lies of Ismail Sabri,” said Mr Lim. The retail prices for diesel and petrol were raised yesterday by 25 Malaysian cents in accordance with Putrajaya’s managed float mechanism.

“Is Ismail going to blame the Chinese traders again for either causing the rise in petrol prices or for not reducing prices?” Mr Lim asked.

“Again, the failure of BN, MCA or Gerakan to demand that Ismail apologise is nothing short of disgraceful and shows that BN has run out of ideas and principles on how to run the economy,” he added.

Mr Ismail yesterday assuaged public concerns about the fuel rate hike.

“The price reduction programme for at least 73 items, which I launched recently, will continue. The cost of these items will be lower by between 5 and 20 per cent at farmers’ markets as compared with other markets ... So the people need not worry. I hope traders who gave the excuse that the fuel cost component was not the reason not to bring prices down when fuel prices were lower will be consistent in their stand by not raising prices now that fuel prices have gone up again,” he told a press conference after visiting a market in Seremban.

Mr Lim told Mr Ismail and the BN government, however, that the present economic reality was that key industries were under the control of Malay and some non-Malay cronies of UMNO.

He said DAP and its partners in the opposition Pakatan Rakyat coalition were willing to compete with BN and UMNO on policy matters pertaining to the economy, and not on racism.

Early last month, Mr Ismail allegedly called for Malays to boycott Chinese traders in a Facebook post, in a bid to pressure them to lower the price of goods sold, saying: “As long as Malays don’t change, the Chinese will take advantage to oppress the Malays.”

The minister later clarified that he was directing his remarks at unscrupulous Chinese traders instead of the entire Chinese community. He has also insisted that he is not racist.

Following the uproar over Mr Ismail’s remarks, Prime Minister Najib Razak weighed in on the controversy, saying the Cabinet was informed that the remarks were directed at all businesses that refused to lower prices and not those belonging to specific races. THE MALAY MAIL