It was the unkindest cutVALLEY VIEWBy Datuk Shahrir Abdul SamadI refer to the Valley View comment by Tommy Lee entitled Can’t stomach high food prices – Traders and hawkers getting away with it due to lack of clear guidelines in StarMetro on Dec 15.First, I acknowledge Lee’s right to lament the higher cost of cooked food in Kuala Lumpur compared with his hometown Penang.I am happy to note that he will no longer patronise the nasi kandar shop because he “nearly choked when the bill came to RM10.10.”Since nasi kandar originates from Penang, Lee will certainly be a more authoritative commentator on the taste and price of nasi kandar than a Klang Valley-bred resident.However, I have to respond to his assertion that “the government is hardly doing anything to get food prices down other than getting the big merchants like Giant and Tesco hypermarkets to lower their prices.”For the record, it is true that both Giant and Tesco were the earliest of hypermarkets and supermarkets to participate in the Price Reduction Campaign organised by the Domestic Trade and Consumer Affairs Ministry.I officiated at the Giant campaign on Oct 20 and at that of Tesco two days later.Since then, Carrefour and Jusco, local hypermart Mydin, other local supermarket chains such as The Store, Econsave, UO Superstore, Tunas Manja and Sunshine, and the smaller retail chains like 99 Speedmart and Terus Maju have joined in the Price Reduction Campaign.Even D’mart, a chain of retail stores operated by the Felda Cooperative in several Felda schemes all over peninsular Malaysia, has participated in the Price Reduction Campaign.Consequently, Lee’s assertion is only true from the perspective of someone who lives and works (and eats!) in the Klang Valley.Participants of the campaign located at the margins of the Klang Valley, and what more of those smaller local enterprises located in Pahang or the Felda schemes, will not be appreciated by Lee.It is not that The Star reporters were not invited to each launching of the campaign. They were. But I can understand the fact that since the campaign was launched in the last week of October and is now almost two months old, it has since become less newsworthy.Thus, what has happened following the involvement in the campaign of Giant and Tesco may well have escaped Lee’s attention. But it is no excuse for him to claim that the government is “hardly doing anything”!Lee further asserts that my reply is “most amusing”. This is in connection with my explanation that the full impact of declining raw material prices will be felt in the first quarter of next year.Lee claims that I had the “audacity to ask consumers to be patient with the current high cost of goods” and adds an emotional twist by asking: “How can one be patient when your baby is crying because she is hungry?”This is a paragraph which is the unkindest cut of all.Does Lee really want the reader to believe that the ministry’s Price Reduction Campaign has not gone beyond Giant and Tesco when he should know that what he asserts is patently false.In fact, just the day before Lee’s article appeared in StarMetro, I was in Penang, his hometown, to launch the Sunshine supermarket group’s participation in the campaign.What pleased me was that the prices set by the supermarket group were very competitive with those set by the earlier participants of the campaign.The ministry will eventually publish the prices of selected food items of all participating retailers in its website and the price information will be on a district-by-district basis.It is hoped that such information will not only allow a consumer to be better informed but may well encourage competition among the participating retailers for the consumer’s benefit.I read Lee’s article right down to his parting shot: “Mr Minister, spare us the excuses and get the whip cracking.”Lee has adroitly complained of my inaction over prices but the examples he gave of high prices were mostly of cooked food although he did include that of the trousers pressing service.He argued that “the government should seriously consider some price control initiative if it has the welfare of people at heart. You can never, never find shopkeepers or hawkers who would voluntarily lower the prices of goods unless there is pressure from the government.”I worry that Lee wants me to crack the whip, i.e. use force or the threat of force, against shopkeepers and hawkers.At almost every press conference after launching the Price Reduction Campaign at a participating retailer, I will explain that the ministry has no legal power to get retailers to reduce their prices and all the participating retailers are doing so purely on a voluntary basis to cut their own margins and supported by their suppliers.Thus, it has been voluntary all this while, rebutting Lee’s claim that they will “never, never” do so!However, I agree with Lee that the problem is with the prices of cooked food. All the examples cited by him are cooked food (char koey teow, chicken rice, wantan noodles, nasi kandar, cup of tea) rather than of fresh and manufactured food items.His decision not to ever again patronise the nasi kandar restaurant is one way to protest against the high price of nasi kandar.To expect the federal government to “crack the whip” against the hawkers is unrealistic since it means government intervention right down the supply chain beyond retailing.Furthermore, the hawkers know that there will always be customers even if they raise their prices.The local authorities may have more influence than my federal ministry over the food hawkers in state-owned hawker complexes.Currently, licences are issued for the purpose of health control. Perhaps, the privilege of location can include the additional and voluntary adhering to reasonable prices.As a journalist, Lee is expected to be better informed than his readers of events and even of the country’s laws and governmental structure. This is because it is expected that what he writes is well-informed, fair and accurate.He has no excuse not to know that the Price Reduction Campaign has been voluntary and in spite of the ministry not having the necessary legal powers to “crack the whip” beyond the limited range of price-control items, the campaign has been successful in bringing down prices of manufactured food items.He has also has no excuse not to know that the campaign has gone beyond the “big merchants” and has reached not only the margins of the Klang Valley (to Banting and Kapar, for example) but also to the rural Felda schemes.He absolutely has no excuse to take my remarks out of context and then use them arbitrarily to justify his unhappiness with the price and taste of Klang Valley’s cooked food.I can appreciate his longing for the taste and price of Penang food. However, since he writes for StarMetro through the Valley View column, which presumably has to be helpful and useful for readers in the Klang Valley, Lee should refrain from half-truths and distortions.Being snide also does not help in Lee’s battle against his homesickness while he is expected to explore and highlight life and its highs and lows in the Klang Valley. Note: Datuk Shahrir Abdul Samad is the Minister of Domestic Trade & Consumer Affair______________________________________________________
Hmmm...I thought this piece is about Lorena 'the unkindest cut' Bobbit. Wishful thinking.
Political speak is too predictable. Always a long-winded nothingness. Did I detect ample hints of sarcasm there too, Datuk? Is that the way to make us believe the government is actually doing something? A few widely publicised events? That we already bloody aware of, thank you. We want to know them steps and measures that are to be undertaken so that our confidence in you do not dip. So your Ministry don't have the necessary power to go against blatant profiteering? Why bother having Kementerian Perdagangan Dalam Negeri dan Hal Ehwal Pengguna when all that is needed is for us to boycott shops and hope things can get really rosy? You peeps make them rounds during them festivities and check on chicken and chillies and long beans and then do what? Rally for increase pay?
With all the supermarkets and wet markets Price Redundant Campaigns you had to officiate, who's writing this piece of shit? You got your own 4th floor lackeys?
How people changed. Where's that guy who left the Backbenchers' Club for something he believed in? How belief changed.
I don't have a craving for some Penang exotic food spreads or Kelantan or French. I don't have the time nor money to travel more than 50 metres on a weekday just to satisfy me palate. I just need some basic food that can fill me guts and give me the strength to survive another day. I just need to have access to a price list of some basic food items. A list of errant shopkeepers will help. If you can list all them good guys, why not them bad ones as well. If I'm a bad paymaster, me name will be splashed all over the financial system. Why can't an errant shopkeeper be shamed as well.
I can't shake off this feeling that this government which is elected by the people doesn't have the people as their priority. To reduce the price of fuel, they think about the losses that could be faced by the kiosk operators. True, they are people too but what about them gains when price increases. Why are contractors
compensated when time is bad? Business is always a calculated risk. That is why you either do well or go bust. It all depends on how you manage your capital, manage the prevailing economic situation and how well you predict future trends and costs. Not everybody can do that well or at all. The better ones survive and evolve into bigger entities. Good on them, pats on their backs. But when them failures came running to the government and being compensated, where's the element of hard work and good management? It's like telling me to get me butt involve in a government project and if my cut fell below my expectation, it's me prerogative to ask for compensation. And I'll be well compensated. In the process the government and all its MLCs are being taken hostage by business peeps and cronies in lopsided deals and the money that is meant for improving our lives is being channeled into a few pockets. Is everybody in the government machinery that gullible, do not read law? Or do they have some other vested interests? Government peeps, especially those of the praying kind, you must've heard and read the oft quote, you're what you eat. And your children are what they eat. Can you ensure that they are eating food that is meant for them? And can you yorself too for that matter? Halal is not good enough. It must also not from sources that deprive others of their rights.
So can I have a government project or two, Datuk Minister? No? Meant for cronies? Oh, I thought so.
Datuk Minister, spare us some change and get us them whipped cream crackers.
