PUTRAJAYA, Jan 10 — The mechanism for controlling the price of goods and setting the ceiling price will be reviewed soon, said Domestic Trade and Cost of Living (KPDN) Minister Datuk Seri Salahuddin Ayub.
“We will definitely review it soon because it has been a year (maximum price set),” he told a press conference after delivering the ministry’s 2023 New Year’s Address here today.
The Federation of Malaysian Retailers Association recently raised that the government should re-evaluate the price control mechanism which is considered to be out of date and has resulted in the short supply of controlled goods such as eggs, sugar and cooking oil in the market.
The association also suggested that the government consider on floating the prices according to the market, but at the same time, provide purchase coupons or discounts to the target group.
On the ‘Payung Rahmah’ initiative, which includes the ‘Bakul Rahmah’, ‘Jualan Rahmah’, ‘Kafe Rahmah’ and ‘Pakej Rahmah’ programmes to reduce the cost of living, Salahuddin said KPDN will focus its implementation on the hardcore poor.
The Statistics Department’s data as of December 31, 2022, shows that there are 130,000 poor household heads in the country.
In a separate development, Salahuddin denied that there is no packet cooking oil in the market as claimed by some parties, but assured that KPDN officials will act immediately if there are complaints about the lack of supply.
Earlier in his speech, the minister also announced several other offers, among them, the Companies Commission of Malaysia (SSM) will give a 90 per cent compound reduction from the original value of the compound on companies with a ‘dissolved’ status under the Companies Act 1965.
SSM will also continue to reduce the compound by 90 per cent of the original compound value for regular offences under the Companies Act 2016, he said.
— Bernama
