Asgardian Magik

Weird one this:

Tenaga Nasional Bhd, Malaysia’s biggest power producer, received an advanced payment of RM1 billion from the government on behalf of state-owned Petroliam Nasional Bhd as compensation for additional costs arising from a shortage of gas supply, CIMB Group Holdings Bhd said in a report today.

Imagine that.

Never mind that Petronas was recently reported to be in a general disagreement with Tenaga over the whole gas shortage issue but, Hey Presto!, the Government chips in.

Read : “on behalf” technically means that it is NOT from Petronas’ coffer. Or is it?

(Am really wondering where our Government is churning out all this money from. Couple of billions here, there and everywhere in between. What’s with all the RM500 extras for households earning less than RM3,000 per month and more.

Aren’t we in budget deficit or something?)

There’s more in fact: Bloomberg says that a CIMB Analyst says - without the latter attributing from where he got this one from - that Tenaga may get another RM1 billion from the government within this financial year ending August.

There you go.

That said, RM2 billion technically is not a whole lot of money for the Government to be so murah hati: but hold on here; are we talking about the Gomen’s money or Petronas money here?

Or is it the same thing that the Petronas money is basically Gomen’s money? (Not the other way around, though, mind you).

Sometime last year from I cannot remember when, my monthly electric bill went up by some 7%.

Yep, I’m one of those who is guilty of using excessive electricity to power my internet, aircond unit (no “s” there, please note), fridge, the occasional Astro viewing, laptop charging, washing machine etc.

It is a substantial 7% hike for me and from what I gather, this month’s onwards I will kena another 1% for some Green thingy initiative for using more than RM70++ worth of electricity every month. Maybe, or maybe not: we shall see.

In the meantime, Tenaga is like bleeding money.

Why in heaven’s name is there a monolith of a power generation project constructed way out there in the Sarawak wilderness is best known to those who concocted the project in the first place.

For a muslim, one should therefore be thinking that there in a less than Barakah element in all these income that the country is earning, no?

Maybe: I shall leave this question to those who are way much more knowledgeable than me to ponder.

In the meantime, pay we shall do.

Sweet Subsidy: Is That Why Its Got to Go?

It does seem like “subsidy” is a much maligned word these days.

Much maligned as though it’s THE grotesque wart that is hindering this nation’s perfect statuesque appearance.

Whatever it is, we do not have to look too far ahead to see what life is like without all these “tongkat”s pushing commodity prices downwards.

For one, the government is looking set to use a MyKad-based method to facilitate a subsidy-less floating of the pump price.

Two things come to mind:

One, my own MyKad is splitting into two, so using THAT would be an exercise in temper controlling.

Two, since I a considered middle income earner, I would have to pay the non-subsidies rate anyway.

Fine. No problem.

Right now, I have to pay premium price at the pumps as my K-Car is such a sluggard when filled with RON95 petrol anyway.

It’s harder to empathize with the removal of subsidies from the other commodities, though. Sugar, cooking oil, flour and rice, to take some examples.

The direct impact for consumer like you and me will not be that major, perhaps, as most families (speaking of the so-called middling group of the neither poor nor rich) are already paying market price (?), with the exception of sugar.

It is the indirect impact that would hurt our wallets, though.

Producers will take the cue to raise prices when subsidies are lifted, never mind the portions of the subsidized commodities.

The ever-popular Malaysian benchmark of inflation – the teh tarik and roti canai – will shoot up, followed with a round of indignations by all and sundry.

Then, a compromise whereby Mamak stalls and restaurants everywhere (Ahem!) sacrifice their earning to “subsidize” this so-called Malaysia staple.

Silently, though, the prices in the other items will creep up.

Nowadays our RM10 note is just enough for a single person unless they go really, really stingy.

This creeping up in other prices is the real net effect of any moves to de-subsidize commodities.

Couple the removal with the introduction of the GST (Good and Services Tax) and it could well mean that our Ringgit shrinks even further.

The government is quoting figures such RM1b and RM2b in extra revenues from GST and petrol subsidy withdrawals.

Not much moollah when it comes to boosting the national coffer, actually.

In fact, it’s not even enough to cover the recent Government's PKFZ bond guarantee .

We really should be looking elsewhere for more solid savings.

Plugging government expenditure leaks, for example.

Wonder how much we can save from there.

Subsidy me this?