Acute shortage of subsidized cooking oil

By SAPP Tawau

We can see oil  palm trees everywhere in Sabah especially in Tawau and Sandakan  stretching for miles and miles and yet strangely we can’t see the cooking oil made from palm oil on the shelves in Tawau shops . 

How could Sabah the largest producer of palm oil in Malaysia be experiencing acute shortage of cooking oil ?  What happened to this subsidized cooking oil ?  Where have they disappeared to ?

According to insiders information and firsthand market information gathered, the subsidized cooking oil is currently being smuggled to Indonesia through Sibatik Island, Tawau. Everyone in Tawau knows this . But what have the authorities done to curb it ?  Are they really ignorant about the smuggling or pretending not to know or truly incapable to carry out their duties to curb the smuggling which caused inconveniences to the people and loss of rakyat’s subsidized money that should benefit Malaysian instead of Indonesian .

 If Tawau authorities bothered to visit the neighbouring countries,  they will  see Malaysian subsidized cooking oil and sugar are being sold openly in the kiosks and shops in our neigbouring  country. The picture shows one of the places in Tawau where they are loading the goods for shipment .

Insiders tipped that the producers of the cooking oil in Sabah have been advised by the local authorities not to sell so much cooking oil to the shops in a day but  bit by bit on daily basis. They do not want the cooking oil to be snapped up by buyers in one day  leaving no cooking oil or zero supply of cooking oil in the market for the next few days. This  is to give Sabahan the perception or intentionally mislead them that there is no shortage of subsidized cooking oil in the market.

This situation of having acute shortage of basic food  usually could only happen in a country that is poor or  the government is  too  corrupt and incompetent till  they could not even service or look after the basic needs of the people.  How can Sabahan , the owners of rich natural resources like oil, gas, timber, palm oil, seafood industry, first class tourist spots in Mt Kinabalu, Sipadan, etc, and  strategically located between the giant markets of China and Indonesia  be still bogged down with the problems of supply of basic food needs and basic infrastructure ?  

With these resources, Sabahan should be living equally or better than those in Brunei or Singapore  If the state is administered by an efficient and  competent government.
BY: sapp tawau