The gist of the matter

NST yesterday reported this:

RON95 petrol will be available at all petrol stations by Sept 1 and will be sold at RM1.75 per litre.

It will replace RON92 petrol, and push RON97 petrol into the premium product category, where it will be sold at RM2 per litre, 20 sen more than its current price.

It is true that many cars can run on RON95 without experiencing knocking. It is also true that both fuels with burn equally clean since the ‘detergents’ in the fuel is the same.

I welcome the introduction of a ‘cheaper’ fuel which would give us some saving, even though the saving is only 5 cents per litre.  At the same time, I am puzzled by the increase of price of Ron97 to Rm2.00 per litre, an increase of more than 10%.

My contention is : why must we increase the price of RON97 to RM 2.00?

Let’s say you are now staying in a 2 room flat and pay a monthly rental of RM200 a month. Now,  the management informs you that from September the first, you can choose to stay in a one room flat for RM180 per month. Your 2 room flat will still be available, but if you want to continue to stay in a 2 room flat, you have to pay RM250 per month.

Or a simpler analogy. Let’s say your daily wan-tan mee costs you Rm4 a bowl and have 5 balls of wan tan in a bowl. Now suddenly the vendor is introducing a new package whereby you can eat his wan tan mee at Rm 3.80 but with only 4 balls of wan tan inside. If you want back your usual 5-wantan bowl, you have to pay Rm 4.50..

That is the gist of the matter.

If this is not price raising , I do not know what  is..  All of  us went through arithmathic classes. You do not need to be an accountant to realise that this is price increase. We can all see that the same products we are using and would like to continue using is going to be more expensive.

The last round when petrol pump price increases , inflation shot up. This increase is smaller- only 20 cents- but coming at a time when everyone’s pocket is shrinking, it will certainly hurt.

I have no qualm of using RON95. But since  we are a petroleum producing country and world petroleum prices- even though is higher than 6 months ago- is still very much lower than last year,  I see no reason for another round of price increase. Perhaps the new minister in charge would care to postpone this increase?

If not, one thing can be sure. Our daily cuppa of coffee in coffee shops is going to cost at least ten cents more even if we switch to Ron95.