Leader

NST Leader: Cost-of-living crunch

WE are being told that a "new approach" to cost of living is heading our way. It better be.

More of the same has left the people perplexed about the supply-and-demand nonsense that gets into print, mostly bromides from businesses.

Profiteers pillory? We will wait for the five papers to be presented to the cost-of-living meeting tomorrow to shed light on it. In the meanwhile, consider the plight of papaya-dependent purchasers. Only days ago, the popular fruit was being retailed at RM6 a kg.

On Saturday, it spiked to RM6.90 per kg. No, don't go looking for international "market" factors. There is none involved here. Neither go blaming the weak ringgit. Such things are capitalists' red herrings. This fruit is grown in the sovereign soil of Malaysia, untouched by the misfortune of external trade and the vicissitudes of foreign exchange.

Granted, crude oil is somewhere there to get the papaya to move from the farm to the grocer. But reflect on two questions. How much has the price of petrol risen? And why doesn't the perishable papaya cost less when crude prices slide?

Yet our farmers don't get any share of this loot. Something shady is happening between the farm and the fork. And it is not just a papaya story. It is a national lament of food and goods that has been grabbing the headlines for a while now. Time for the "new approach" to put an end to it all.

But will it? First of all, it must be new, not dressed up as one. For it to be new, the 15th Malaysian government must have a generous dose of political will. A few early moves by Prime Minister Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim suggests that our hope isn't misplaced.

Days after his appointment, Anwar even postponed working on the cabinet list to zero in on cost of living issues. On Nov 27, he got the National Action Council on Cost of Living (Naccol) moving by giving it a two-week deadline to come up with answers. Though we think getting into councils or committees, or presenting papers, has never really solved anything in the past, we will be generous enough to adopt a wait-and-see watch.

Tomorrow's Naccol meeting would be an early indication of what to expect in the days to come. Whatever it is, no old answers, please.

Another sign of political will is putting two ministries to be in charge of food security and cost of living. But political will is not just about getting things moving. It is also about achieving an end, which is to make food and goods accessible and affordable.

There will be plenty of hurdles, many of which will be strewn along the path of the ministries by profiteers, monopolists, middlemen and cartels. They will cry in unison: why stop export of this or that food? And their argument? A stale one rehearsed since the days of capitalist-leaning Austrian economist Friedrich Hayek: markets must be free and not regulated.

Ask them to point to one place on earth that is free and unregulated and they will be stumped for an answer. Markets have lots of noise.

The only way to get rid of it is for the government to adopt a new way of seeing and doing. "Holistic" and "new" are two words we would like to hear tomorrow and thereafter.

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