KUCHING, May 25: SUPP Youth Central secretary-general Milton Foo has advised former Pakatan Harapan (PH) ministers Datuk Seri Saifuddin Nasution Ismail and Chong Chieng Jen to look in the mirror before pointing fingers at the current Perikatan Nasional (PN) government.
This criticism came in response to a joint statement from the representatives of three of PH’s component parties including Saifuddin, Chong and Parti Amanah Negara’s Datuk Dr Hatta Ramli calling PN government to stick to the former government party’s price control policy due to concern on price hikes on food items last week.
“Chong as the former Ministry of Domestic Trade and Consumer Affairs (KPDNHEP) deputy minister, what had he done to effectively curb the price hike of goods during his tenure?” he hit back in a statement today.
Foo pointed out that he had challenged Chong on a few occasions last year and in 2018 through the media, urging him to disclose the list of goods which Chong had claimed had gone down in price.
“On Oct 17, 2018, Chong said the prices of 70 per cent of goods have gone down due to the implementation of Sales and Service Tax (SST) on Sept 1, 2018.
“He (Chong) also said that on the whole, 70 per cent or the prices of 291 items (out of 417 household items surveyed) were reduced, when answering a question raised by (Kapit MP) Datuk Alexander Nanta in Dewan Rakyat.
“And I even suggested to Chong to organise a shopping trip to bring the consumers to buy the cheaper goods in town,” he added.
However, when Chong eventually released the price list of goods which he alleged had been reduced, Foo said he found out that the prices were incompatible with and different from the one produced by the retailers and merchants.
“Chong is advised to look at the mirror first before finger pointing at others. Whether he has done the job well when he was the then deputy minister for KPDNHEP, the answer is plain and obvious. Public knows and the facts speak volumes about it,” he emphasised.
Meanwhile, the PH trio criticised that the PN government, in particular the minister and the deputy minister of Domestic Trade and Consumer Affairs Ministry (KPDNHEP), was slow to act and unable to control the price hike well.
They added that PN must use the previous PH government’s success as a yardstick, when it comes to price control of essential items, and continue the good mechanism PH had put in place. —DayakDaily
