ALTHOUGH Prime Minister Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim has confirmed that Economy Minister Datuk Seri Rafizi Ramli has not resigned but merely on long leave, the latter’s prolonged absence has nonetheless triggered speculation surrounding the July 2025 implementation of targeted RON95 subsidies.
Nobody knows for sure whether the PKR deputy president is on leave until May 31 for personal or political reasons.
But the rumour mill has it that the recent PKR divisional election has delivered a knock-out blow to his camp – signalling a tough battle ahead in the party’s central leadership polls which has tentatively been scheduled for May 24.
Among Rafizi’s allies who lost were party vice-president and Natural Resources and Environmental Sustainability Minister Nik Nazmi Nik Ahmad as well as Deputy Energy Transition and Water Transformation Minister Akmal Nasrullah Nasir.
Amid unfounded claims by detractors that the Pandan MP has “emptied his office”, motoring Malaysians are only keen to know if the RON95 targeted subsidies implementation is still on course, will be shelved yet again or be scrapped to pacify – in particular M40 Malaysians – who are said to be barely coping to make ends meet these days.
Snail-pace
Progress of Rafizi’s RM85 mil Central Database Hub (PADU) which is touted as a “game changer” for distributing targeted subsidies based on a wide range of economic and social data from millions of Malaysians seems to have stifled.
There seems to be little breakthrough since Nov 20 last year when the chartered accountant and data-driven outfit Invoke Malaysia founder stated that registrations for PADU’s second phase would open after the Cabinet has approved several criteria currently being refined by the ministries involved.
In January, Rafizi said the eligibility criteria and mechanism for the RON95 subsidy should be announced in a few weeks pending the Cabinet’s approval before informing the public.
Again in March, Rafizi divulged that the government had yet to determine how eligibility will be determined despite the Cabinet having reviewed four proposals.
It was previously reported that the government was in the midst of re-working the existing T15 (Malaysia’s top 15% of income earners) income classification which would be announced by 1Q 2025.
As weeks have since turned into months, the Petrol Dealers Association of Malaysia (PDAM) had in April called for clarity on various concerns over RON95 targeted subsidy implementation, including as to eligibility, the use of MyKad to identify qualifying recipients and its costs and financial implications.
With a mere two months to go before July dawns on us, one wonders if the implementation of targeted RON95 petrol subsidies is still on track or otherwise, especially given that Rafizi is deeply engaged in the intricate work of seeing through the petrol subsidy rationalisation exercise.
After being pushed back from 2024 due to unclear implementation strategies, his absence has amplified concerns about the clarity of the implementation process, especially given the complexities of reaching 30 million individual consumers compared to the fleet card system used for diesel subsidies. – May 3, 2025
Main image credit: Berita Harian
