Is the cost of a meal set to rise in East Malaysia?

A massive cut in the 1Price Budget causes shock in Sabah and Sarawak.

KOTA KINABALU: The Opposition in Sabah and Sarawak, has expressed shock that Putrajaya has slashed its allocation for the 1Malaysia, 1Price programme by a whopping 60 per cent.

This has cast doubts on whether essentials like sugar, flour and cooking oil in particular in Sabah and Sarawak will be retailed at the same prices as that in the peninsula.

“The programme had an allocation of RM 85 million in 2014. However, for 2015, the allocation has been dramatically reduced to RM 33 million,” said two MPs from Parti Keadilan Rakyat (PKR), Darell Leiking (Penampang), and Wong Chen (Kelana Jaya).

“This is a RM 52 million cut and represents a 60 per cent drop from the previous allocation.”

The Minister of Domestic Trade, Co-operatives and Consumerism, Ismail Sabri Yaakob, gave the breakdown in Parliament as RM14.2 million in subsidy for sugar, RM3.72 million for flour, and RM 15 million for cooking oil.

The Minister, according to the two MPs, gave a “nonsensical answer” that the massive drop in the 1Malaysia, 1Price budget allocation was largely due to the drop in demand for cooking oil in Sabah and Sarawak.

“This nonsensical answer means that the cooking oil subsidy for 2014 was extremely high at RM 60 million,” said the duo in their statement. “The Minister has agreed to give a written reply and PKR will continue to press him for full and better disclosure.”

The party is taking the position that the massive drop in the allocation for 1Malaysia, 1Price in Budget 2015 is the clearest indication that Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak’s administration don’t have the best interests of the people of Sabah and Sarawak at heart, although the ruling Barisan Nasional (BN) regards the two Borneo nations as Fixed Electoral Deposits.