STATING that the Madani government should aspire to impose heavy punishment on petrol kiosk operators for selling subsidised petrol to foreigners, veteran journalist and blogger Datuk A. Kadir Jasin has paid tribute to citizen patrol championed by netizens who exposed such scams.
In a reaction to a RON95 theft that took place at a petrol station in Sungai Bakap in mainland Penang where s Singapore-registered car was caught in the act re-fuelling with the ‘yellow nozzle’, the national journalism laureate has penned on his Facebook page:
“That’s the way to go. Punish the offenders heavily, not punishing domestic consumers with higher prices purportedly to stop smuggling.
“Ordinary consumers are not cheats and smugglers. The smugglers are well-organised syndicates who, almost always, are in cahoots with rotten durians of the civil service.”
Kadir went on to contend that he would not be too quick to praise the law enforcement agency involved in taking action against the offending petrol station.
“Instead, I congratulate and praise the social media community for recording and broadcasting the offence as it happened,” asserted the former editor-in-chief of mainstream New Straits Times.
“Collectively, social media users are formidable. If they had been known to bring down bad governments and organised global boycott in protest of the atrocities against the Palestinians, they can surely stop petrol stations from selling subsidised fuel to foreigners.”
In retrospect, Kadir shared that traditional mainstream media had been trying to do this for ages but without much success.
Unlike the forces of today’s social media, he noted that syndicates and their civil service conspirators were influential while the mainstream media was not widespread enough to have the viral effect.
“I remember newspapers reporting syndicate members siphoning diesel in a rubber plantation near Kajang in the bright daylight back in the eighties,” recalled Kadir. “When raided, they merely moved to another location. The raids themselves were largely for show.”
But with the participation of social media and its viral effect, Kadir is hopeful that the potential lawbreakers will think twice before committing an offence while “the authorities cannot anymore main wayang (literally, “play acting”) with the public”.
“Viral effect is a phenomenon that typically occurs when users find a content engaging, entertaining or valuable, leading them to share it within their networks,” he added. – July 24, 2024
