KUALA LUMPUR, July 13 – Economy Minister Rafizi Ramli defended the sudden announcement of subsidy rationalisation today, stating it was necessary to prevent traders from raising prices of goods repeatedly. He explained that any advance notice of the policy change would allow traders to exploit the situation by preemptively increasing prices.
“We have to balance the effect if the signal is given earlier, because the problem is that the increase in the price is set by the traders,” Rafizi said during an oral session in the Dewan Rakyat. He added that announcing the decision after it was finalised at the government level would reduce the risk of prices rising multiple times.
This comes after Prime Minister Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim’s May 21 announcement of the diesel subsidy rationalisation programme, projected to save the government RM4 billion annually, and the subsequent June 9 announcement by Finance Minister II Datuk Seri Amir Hamzah Azizan setting the unsubsidised diesel price at RM3.35 per litre.
