While opinion is free, it should, preferably, be grounded in facts.

Ganesh Sahathevan's Nothing figures in inflation figures shows that the writer has a poor understanding of the difference between the GDP deflator and the CPI, as indicated by his rhetorical question: 'Hence, one would expect the CPI and GDP Deflator figures to be more or less equal, yes?'

It would fortuitous if the two were equal in any one year. For one thing, while the CPI basket is fixed relative to a base year (last re-basing was 2005), the GDP basket changes yearly.

As to whether the CPI basket represents reality, the simple answer is that it represents an average reality, ie, the average of the pattern of consumption of the sampled households in the Household Expenditure Survey.

Unless one believes that the Department of Statistics cooks those figures, then the 'accuracy' of that average is dependent on the expenditure patterns reported by the sampled households. Since that publication for 2004 is available, it's possible to check whether the composition of consumption derived from that survey is realistic.

Is the pattern of the GDP deflator and the CPI percent change for Malaysia peculiar to Malaysia? For an answer, one could look at the same data for, eg, Singapore - from the same source as cited by Sahathevan.

None of the above means there are no issues with the figures, but it's not due to anything suspicious in the differences between the GDP deflator and the CPI. For one thing, it would be good to know how exactly are prices tracked for the CPI.