Consumer body wants PH govt to address inflation, spiralling cost of living
MIRI: The new Pakatan Harapan (PH)-led government should come up with a mechanism to address inflation while controlling the spiralling cost of living.
Consumer Association Miri (CAM) president George Bennett Francis said with the revisiont of Goods and Services Tax (GST) from six per cent to zero per cent, the government must act immediately to ensure that prices of essential commodities sold in the markets would be lower than before zero-GST.
According to him, the government must not overlook the importance of ensuring that traders would reduce their prices on two basic items – vegetables and ‘Kopi O’ (black coffee).
“These two items are basic fundamentals to measure inflation that must be included in the
Failure to address these two basic items can cause, or continue to cause, long-lasting consequence of inflation. — George Bennett Francis, Consumer Association Miri president
Consumer Price Index (CPI), and under the price control items,” he pointed out.
George explained that the prices of vegetables and Kopi O should be addressed as they are seemingly used by the ordinary folk to measure the inflation rates.
“Failure to address these two basic items can cause, or continue to cause, long-lasting consequence of inflation.”
He reasoned that to the ordinary consumers, the measurement of inflation is based on the prices of ‘sayur’ and ‘Kopi O’ in the market, which might appear petty but remained the fact of the matter.