The Malaysian Insight

PUTRAJAYA still spends hundreds of millions of ringgit on fuel subsidies, even after officially removing it in 2014, said Treasury Secretary-General Irwan Serigar Abdullah. 

Speaking at the Post Budget 2018 dialogue at the Securities Commission headquarters in Kuala Lumpur today, he said the government used to fork out around RM22 billion on subsidies before using the managed float system based on the automatic pricing mechanism (APM).

“Although we have the fuel price mechanism, we still have some subsidies in there. The government still subsidises. 

“Sometimes, we don’t want to burden the rakyat too much, so we subsidise a bit during certain periods when it goes up.

“I think we still (subsidise) a few hundred million per month. That’s why sometimes you see the price increase,” Irwan said.

“I don’t know about the future. I don’t think we will keep subsidising,” he said in response to a question from a participant about the fuel price mechanism. 

Since March 29, the ceiling price for petrol has been announced on a weekly basis. The petrol and diesel prices are set according to the monthly average of global crude oil prices. 

On Budget 2018, Irwan said the government had set up a task force to oversee the implementation of all projects set out in the budget. 

“Chief Secretary Ali Hamsa will chair the task force and I will be the deputy. This is to ensure that all government agencies will implement the projects and programmes as scheduled and in a cost-effective manner so that it will have a better impact on the people,” he said. – October 30, 2017.