I refer to the Malaysiakini report Fuel prices down by 15 sen.

Deputy Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak said that the government has been considerate and has reduced the fuel price five times. But the rakyat are not small kids, we all know ayour hidden agenda.

You have reduced the petrol price five times for a total of 70 sen. This is nothing compared to the one time increase of 78 sen in June.

I still remember Domestic Trade and Consumer Affairs Minister Shahrir Samad being interviewed by the press in early October when he said that the government will reduce the price to RM1.92 (the original price before the 78 sen increase) when the world oil price drops to US$72 or lower.

At that time, it was at around US$80. Now, world oil prices have dropped to the range of US$52-US$55 and have been consistently hovering at the level with a bias towards a even more lower price.

So where are all the promises? The government didn’t expect world oil prices to drop so fast to that level and now they are now caught with their pants down. The government is not at all sincere with what they had promised..

Shahrir, now just slightly after a month, you have conveniently forgotten what you had said. We would say that you just pretended and you were not sincere in the first place anyway. Now you are trying to divert attention with a campaign to get hypermarkets and the other traders to reduce their prices.

This campaign is good but it should only be carried out after the government has done what it has promised to do and that is to reduce the fuel price to at least RM1.60 now. Only then will all the traders will be able to reduce their goods’ prices by a bigger amount and the compounding effect will be there. Everyone knows that fuel is needed at the various stages of processing goods.

The rakyat has been saying all along that the government no longer subsidises the fuel cost and that actually, the government was making a profit out of the rakyat from the fuel price. We all heard Najib during his speech in parliament when he said that the government was still subsidising petrol by 30 sen a litre.

Finally, yesterday. Shahrir confirmed that the government had not been subsidising anymore since early November and, in fact, was making a profit of 39 sen per litre of fuel from the rakyat. What a shame. Actually, the profit is much more as the government also taxes the petrol stations.

The rakyat will not agree to a floor price for fuel. As world oil prices drop, local fuel prices should also be reduced accordingly. Actually, the government should now let the market forces determine oil prices and no longer control it.

We do not mind if the government makes a small profit of not more than 5 sen per litre. However, the accumulated profit - which will add up to billions of ringgit - should be used to improve public transport in major towns. It should not go into the pocket of the ministers and their cronies.

Wake-up BN, don’t just talk about integrity but walk the talk. BN always says that it will help the rakyat but instead burdens them even more.

A good government will be proactive to the needs of the rakyat, this is not what you see of the present BN.