To Reduce Is To Increase

Many Malaysians are baffled by the government who flip flops with various actions. In order to reduce certain usages (of services or products) by the citizens of Malaysia, the government has to implement some drastic action to discourage Malaysians.

For example (what I could recall after laughing over it with my colleagues):-

a) To discourage people from travelling overseas, the government will increase the application fee for an international passport.

b) To discourage people from using motor vehicles of more than fifteen years, government decided to get those car owners to spend more to conduct vehicle inspection on the road worthiness. In other words (from certain car industry people), it's to encourage such car owners to spend more to buy the Proton cars.

c) To discourage people from using / discontinue the RON 92 petrol, government said that RON 95 and RON 97 of higher prices are of better petrol quality. In Europe, cars are still running on RON 92 which makes foreign produced cars a better choice as it could run on cheaper fuel and this will affect the sales of local made cars as local made cars may not perform well in RON 92.

d) To prevent people from spending too much, government decided to impose a RM50 penalty for each credit card held.

e) To prevent people from getting diabetes or consume too much sugar, government may discontinue subsidy for this item which will definitely increase the price for sugar.

f) To prevent people from buying cigarettes, the government will enforce cigarette packaging to consist of more cigarettes but at a much much much much higher pricing.

g) To prevent people from congesting the city, the government may in the future impose an entry fee for those motor vehicles that has only one passenger which is the driver himself.

h) To discourage people from using plastic bags anymore, the government (or state government) will instruct the supermarkets not to distribute any plastic bags and to sell canvas bags instead that could be used again and again.

i) To discourage people from buying foreign made / imported cars, the government imposed higher import tariffs on those cars in order for the local made cars to survive. However, the local made cars are sold at a higher price in Malaysia if compared to the exported version where the specs are slightly better.

j) To discourage people from congesting the roads and to get the citizens to take public transportation (referring to the lousy bus systems), the government decreased subsidy for the petrol.

What I can say is that the government will tend to 'punish' its citizens into doing something instead of coming up with an encouraging plan so that people will do it willingly which could benefit the citizens at the same time.

Definitely wrong approach in solving problems.

Following were suggested by colleagues:-
a) To decrease cholesterol level for all Malaysians, prices for whatever eggs will be increased up to 50 cents per egg.

b) To discourage people (men generally) from approaching prostitutes, each condom shall be sold at RM50 per piece.

c) To discourage people from eating unhealthy food such as nasi lemak and goreng pisang, coconut and cooking oil will be increased tremendously.
Tags: Malaysia, Price Increase

On The Way to Sudan

It's time to be in Sudan again for ad-hoc assignments. This time, it's for one week.

Three of us flew together and put up at the transit hotel, Millenium Hotel, before taking our connecting flight at 3pm. Saw a yellowish car at the hotel entrance and noticed it was a rare Mustang car. Beautiful.

Wasted that the owner didn't come to ignite the engine. Could have been a powerful roar as American cars are usually on power (as mentioned by my colleague).







Their happy face before arriving in Sudan. This is a shuttle bus that will bring us to the airport. The driver was forced to drive us to the airport even though there were three of us in it.







On the way to the airport, I thought I saw an air conditioned pedestrian bridge that comes with elevators too. Pampered Emiratis.

This is the dreaded flight if you know what I meant.
Tags:
Millennium Hotel, Mustang

Meals at Hailam Kopitiam

With so many types of kopitiam food outlets in Kuala Lumpur, I was already asking when will one open up at my residential area.

True enough, the Hailam Kopitiam decided to open up in Taman Danau Desa. One of the bosses told me that this is their 16th outlet.

Not bad for a local kopitiam that originated from Kuala Pilah of Negeri Sembilan. Glad for all these locals that came up with such innovative restaurants that are giving a challenge to renowned cafes like Coffee Bean, Starbucks, or Gloria Jeans.

Their set-up are almost the same with other local kopitiam type of restaurants as they sell almost similar food.









In a hailam food outlet, you must try their Hailam Traditional Chicken Rice Special to see whether they deserve the right to use the word hailam in their name.













The Hot Chocolate drink is found in a kopitiam too? A bit westernised I think.















The Hailam Chicken Chop with Rice that comes with black pepper gravy is excellent. The gravy is filled with strong pepper taste and it burns a bit in your lungs as you swallow the meat. I like it this way.








The Hailam Special White Coffee Iced Blended was filling too. Quite like white coffee. Can't drink too much of coffee as it will give me migraine.

Price wise - reasonable for this type of food outlet. After tasting only two of their dishes, can't say much about the rest of it in the menu but those that I have ordered were good.

Maybe it's still new, the outlet is filled during lunch and dinner time during the weekends.
Tags: Hailam Kopitiam, Food

Weird Stuff at HUKM

Was at Hospital UKM today and noticed some weird stuff. Camera went to work immediately.

At first I thot it was an accident but upon going nearer, this fella parked this way because the car park was full.

Since the Kancil car is known for its small size, the driver took advantage of it to squeeze between the lamp post and a car in front (which drove off when I reach there).



While walking about in the hospital, I noticed this eye catching public notice ....... Sunathon???

What word was that? Can someone enlighten me? haha

You need to know the malay language also to understand the meaning of this 'new word'. Does that mean that the hospital will line up hundreds of boys to have the Sunathon all on 5 Dec 2009?
Tags: Hospital UKM, Sunathon, Kancil

Cannot Speaking Inglish in Ofis?

Our wonderful Deputy Education Minister has said this - "if you speak English at your workplace, that's weird".

Reason for saying that - it's harmful to the nation's culture and identity.

Crazy fella ............. sorry to say that lah but then I think he has not seen a lot in life.

My company for one has lots of foreigners (besides the cleaning ladies) in the office. English language is being used so that everyone understands each other. By conversing in the national language, we would have to translate each and every sentence or words every now and then in order for all to understand and respond accordingly.

Maybe need to appoint a professional translator that majors in a few language or a few translators sitting in a meeting room ............ haha. We would be holding a routine department meeting having many translators sitting together in a meeting room just like the United Nations having dozens of professional translators. Now you see what I meant.

The same thing goes for many multinational companies based in Malaysia as they would have lots of professionals coming from various nations.

At a time when we are encouraging foreign direct investments, the senior management staff of such investors would usually be based in Malaysia to oversee the business operations. Now, this fella has to open his mouth to tell us that speaking English in office is weird.

The government is also trying to bring back many professional Malaysians who had been working overseas for a number of years in order to beef up our human resource capacity. These Malaysians may not be fluent with the national language anymore. Are we telling them not to come back now?

You who speaks English in office is weird and he's perfecto for not doing so.

I guess that he's strunggling a lot with the English language itself.

Reading: Malaysian minister says English at work 'weird' - Malaysia Today
Tags: English Language, Deputy Education Minister, Weird

Maybank Used For Phishing

Malayan Banking Berhad ("also known as Maybank"), being the largest bank in Malaysia, has been often used by syndicates to dupe Maybank's customers into revealing their internet user id and password. Once you log in using those so-called Maybank 'links' ........ your money will be all gone within seconds, if not minutes.

Received an email from maybank@dynasty.com.my alerting me that my maybank account has been blocked. Is this a Malaysian based email address?

Specifically requested me to click at a maybank2u link to restore my access.

Within minutes, received another email from maybank2u@myb.com.tr. I clicked on the supposedly link to maybank2u.

And this is what you get to see in a new pop-up window. The exact duplication of the genuine site.

If you were so blur and did key in your username and password, you can wave bye bye to all your monies in your maybank account.

This is known as phishing. These internet syndicates were trying their luck / scams in hoping that blur blur Maybank customers will key in their particulars.

In fact, and sadly too, there are blur blur fellas out there.

Related post: Con Job Involving Four Local Banks
Tags: Phishing, Maybank, Malayan Banking Berhad, Maybank2u, Internet Scam, Internet Syndicates, Con Job

Merchants Charge Credit Card Users

The Malaysian government has decided to impose a service tax of RM50 for each principal credit card holder wherelse the supplementary card would be penalised with a service tax of RM25.

Reason given for the implementation of the service tax is to 'teach' credit card holders to spend wisely. What else does the government want to teach me where my credit card balances are clean every month? That I reduce my charges to the credit cards in spite of me having settled all amounts every month? You call that teaching but I call it penalising.

As I'm renovating my house, I was able to charge to my credit cards for lots of purchases and raked up lots of points at the same time lately. I do have the cash but I prefer using my credit cards to pay for it owing to the points.

Unfortunately, the government has decided that I'm to be penalised for using the credit cards. Ok, maybe the government has to think of some ways to earn some revenues to maintain the nation's economy.

But what do you say when the merchants, who have signed up with banks to have a credit card facility in their businesses, are also charging consumers like you and me.

Of late, I have been shopping around for many stuff for the house renovation. Certain shops (not all) that accept the usage of credit cards (applies to both VISA and MASTECARD) for payments have told me this - "I have to charge you 3% extra because you are using the credit card to pay". If you pay by cash, it'll be a bit cheaper.

The goverment is taxing me and now the merchants are passing their costs to me as well. In the end, it's the consumers that are dying.

As far as I understand is that merchants arranged to have credit card facilities in their business premises for their customers' conveniences. At the same time, they'll tell their customers that the credit card facilities were set-up for the benefit of the customers but the customers would have to bear that costs. Fair?

One merchant has fixed the amount of money to be paid if you use your credit card. Say RM5 for each credit card transaction.

What does VISA and MASTERCARD have to say about such practises? Does your company explains to the credit card users who should bear that 3% charges?

What does our local banks have to say about such arrangements? Do you all (banks) know about such games being played?

Are the merchants permitted to pass the costs to the customers? What's the answer?
Tags: VISA, MASTERCARD, Service Tax, Credit Card