It’s been a whirlwind of bad news for us rakyat during the past few days. First, it was the price increase for cooking oil, then it was the hike in Malaysian airport tax, and now, the petrol prices have gone up by 15 cents. That’s A LOT to process within the span of one week. Hope that’s the last bad news we’ll have to hear for now.

Today, it was reported that a family of five will have to bear an additional cost of RM100 per year following the cooking oil rationalisation. This report came after the Dewan Rakyat today, during which Lim Guan Eng made a query about the additional cost that each family will have to fork out. It is estimated that each family will have to spend an average of RM50 more per person (or RM250 for a family of five) for cooking oil per year.

Minister of Domestic Trade, Cooperatives and Consumerism, Datuk Seri Hamzah Zainudin, then answered Lim’s enquiry with: “If it is for a family of five, it will be about RM10 per month and an average of RM100 per year, whereas the mineral water that they buy and drink everyday exceeds the price of the cooking oil.”

Hamzah explained that an average person consumes around 1.5kg of cooking oil per month or RM2.25 per person. In comparison, the cost is a lot lesser than the price of mineral water, depending on how much a person drinks. Translation: cooking oil is cheaper than mineral water. Mind blown! Not sure on the correlation of mineral water and cooking oil, since you can’t really cook using mineral water… or maybe he was just trying to prove a point.

His statement has sparked an outcry among Malaysians who were clearly unhappy with the comparison.

We hope Malaysians will stay strong during these tough and challenging times, and let’s pray for the government to announce a price drop on something else in the coming weeks.