IAM heartened to finally see some real effort by the government to understand the issues plaguing the citizens of Malaysia on the untenable rise in the cost of living.
I hope the formation of the high-level committee chaired by the deputy prime minister will go a long way towards coming out with concrete long-term solutions to stem this seemingly unabated increase in costs and expenses.
I hope that efforts are made to reduce our dependence on imports that puts us at the mercy of the rigours of the foreign exchange.
There should be strong willpower at all levels of the government, be it local, state or federal, to encourage growth of community farming. This practice seems successful in Australia and some parts of Europe. It encourages community living, where urban and suburban dwellers are given small plots to farm produce that may be used to cultivate local produce.
There are many small plots of vacant lots that may be ideal for this purpose.
At the same time as well, there is a need to have better understanding and control of the supply chain, since it is not enough to just have local end products when there is still huge dependency on imports of fertilisers, pesticides, animal feed and so forth.
There must also be a healthy growth of supporting or supplementary products. These products must be competitively priced to ensure they are not monopolised.
There needs to be some concerted effort by the government to equally manage its costs and expenses effectively. It needs to demonstrate that it, too, is tightening its belts, and whatever savings from this exercise will be channelled to the people in various forms to temporarily provide assistance.
This is an opportune time for the government to find a long-term sustainable solution to bring overall costs down. Any measures employed should not look at short-term and temporary solutions alone.
Other countries such as Australia and recently Singapore are showing that bringing costs down is not an impossibility.
Being the stalwarts of the government with the DPM leading the way, the people hope to see some concrete action where their interests are truly taken to heart.
n MEGAT SHAH RIZAL NOOR IKHSAN,Kuala Lumpur