Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi said: ‘The government always takes care of the welfare of the people, including monitoring the rise in prices of goods’. He further added that the government has done a lot to ensure that the prices of essential goods are kept at manageable levels.

It is very convenient to state this. In reality, are we really having a government that is clean and efficient in delivering its policies?

The rice monopoly given to Padiberas Nasional Berhad (Bernas) has done wonders in making farmers suffer since 1996. The function of the Lembaga Padi dan Beras Negara (LPN) has been reduced to a subsidy agency that distributes fertiliser and deprives 120,000 rice farmers of their rightful subsidies.

Over the years, we have not seen an increase in rice productivity; even hybrid rice cultivation has just become a political showcase to lie to the public. Bernas’ buffer rice stock has also been reduced to ‘just in time’ inventory levels to meet inventory control and profitability goals.

Bernas has reduced its buffer stock to a less than two weeks supply, compared with the 100 days supply required by the national food stocking strategies.

Such a decision is threatening our national security at a time when the nation is facing the onslaught of natural disasters. However, it opens up opportunities for price speculation in time if needed.

The buffer stock, however, should serve to prevent excessive price escalations when domestic production falls and international market pressure increases. The quantity of the buffer stock should be enough to cover the quota of future harvests if the country is threatened with crop failures.

Bernas and a private sector entity also control the importing of onions, potatoes and frozen beef all of which are priced much higher than the prevailing market prices.

People who live near the Thai border used to enjoy Thai rice at a price that was at least 40 percent cheaper than the Bernas benchmark price. Frozen beef here costs at least 60 percent higher than its open market price.

The value of the Malaysian ringgit against the US dollar had improved more than 14 percent since it was unpegged but the prices of basic food items such as milk, instant coffee, bread, eggs, chicken and fish have increased between 15 and 25 percent.

The Malaysian household income simply cannot keep up with the near hyper-inflation situation within our economy.

The monetary policies that artificially oppress interest rates to create an illusion of a pro- investment climate are threatening the livelihoods of the fixed-income pensioners who gave their working lives to the nation’s development.

We do not need doctorate degrees in economics to prove that our economy is suffering because of bad economic management. Simple realities in our daily lives speak volumes. Our money cannot buy us the goods we used to buy and our salaries cannot catch up with basic food costs.

A retired 65-year-old government officer asked, ‘What can RM500 buy this day? I can't even afford to go to a private clinic for flu treatment. Hospitalisation due to (an age-related) illness would be disastrous to my entire budget.’

It’s time we question the ‘caring’ Barisan Nasional-led government. What it really cares about are the cronies who have a monopoly over the nation’s food supply. Cermerlang, Gemilang, Terbilang now remains as a deceiving slogan in the Malaysian economic dreamland.