PRICES HIKE AFFECTING CONSUMERS

By: DAP MEDIA

SABAH DAP interior recently conducted a general opinion survey in the rural areas and received numerous public complaints from the rural communities that the increase in fuel prices have resulted in many rural folks and the poor having worse financial burdens as prices of commodities, transportation and services are more expensive.

The prices of certain goods and provisions have increased in prices, and the rural people are worried that the increase in prices of fuel would expect to increase every six months in random with the reduction of fuel subsidies.

Sabah DAP urged the Government to review the increase in prices of petrol, diesel and liquefied petroleum gas that have adversely affected consumers in the rural areas.

The poor rural folks have to depend on public transport to travel from the remote villages to the rural sub-districts and townships on a regular basis to attend to their daily needs, and in search of money to buy food and provisions for their families.

Schooling children are badly affected as their poor parents could hardly afford to pay for bus fares. Ordinary working people in the rural areas complained to Sabah DAP of the heavy cost for their car petrol and maintenance to travel to and fro their villages to their places of work in the townships.

There are also many public complaints from the elderly people who have the needs to visit the rural clinics and district hospital to seek for medical treatments. They lamented that with the high cost of fuel, they have to bear the cost of transportation and other necessities.

Many of the sick and aging folks could hardly afford to pay for the increased in transportation fares if the prices of petrol and diesel keep increasing. Farmers also complained of their difficulties, especially with the increase in the prices of petrol and diesel as this also affected the prices of car maintenance, accessories, spare-parts and services.

The rural roads are bad in many of the rural kampungs and the commuters faced problems in regular maintenance and repairs of their cars and vehicles that cost more with the increase in prices of fuel and commodity.

According to Sabah DAP interior mobile service volunteers, the general public were unhappy and feared that their standard of living became worse. Dr Benjamin Yapp, Sabah DAP Parliamentary Liaison Chief for Keningau and Tenom advised the rural folks to be prepared for the worse, and to practice self-discipline and be prudent in their spending.

In the meantime, Sabah DAP urged the Government to find ways and means to generate revenues and not to burden the hundreds of thousands of rural people who are already living in adjunct poverty and their standard of living in the interior gets from bad to worse. Even business communities in the interior also felt the pinch as prices of materials, transportation, labour charges and services have increased.

Sabah DAP interior Mobile service volunteers came across many hardcore poor families still living in a pitiful state without proper, decent homes and the poor children could hardly afford a decent two meals a day.

Some of the poor rural families have to eat porridge and cheap salted fish and ikan bilis bought from the temu ground just to survive, let alone to buy essential commodities with the ever increasing prices of fuel and commodity imposed by the Government.