Wednesday, June 4, 2008

Fuel Subsidy Mathematics

RM56,000,000,000 (billion that is) subsidy expected to be paid out this year.

27,000,000 (million that is) the population of Malaysia.

Any person who holds a calculator will be able to compute that each Malaysian utilises RM2074 worth of subsidy per head! Regardless if you own a car or not, whether you are a newborn or you are an old folk or handicapped or the homeless! This is the amount of subsidy each Malaysian utilises per year.

Assuming an average Malaysian travels 4000km/month @ 18sen/km (@1.92/litre), that makes his petrol bill to be RM720/month. Bringing a grand total of RM8640/year for his petrol bill. Now assuming this guy has a wife and 2 kids... this family is entitled to 4xRM2074 = RM8296 worth of fuel subsidy.... Would you like to arrive at any conclusion at this point? Imagine if the family has more than 2 kids? For the subsidies alone is enough to pay for this family's entire fuel consumption!!!!

Now someone out there is benefitting BIG time from the fuel subsidies!! We want to know who! Proposing to give cash back and bring petrol to market prices is if any a knee jerk reaction to solving an issue. The long term issues should be resolved. Who are the beneficiaries of the subsidies???

While I know the computation is crude and stupid as the subsidies goes into transportation, fishery, farming etc but.... isnt it ironic?

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