Lower Car Prices For Malaysians?

“I believe that low-income Malaysians today would not have been able to have their own cars had it not been for Proton." - Deputy Finance Minister Datuk Chor Chee Heung.

So pathetic.

How does a low-income Malaysian get to own a Proton? Proton has to build a car which has cheaper components and parts [I hope that the quality has not been sacrificed/compromised ;)] coupled with lower duties imposed by the government.

Personally, those who can even afford to buy a local made car are quite well off. It's not just buying a car but you have to ensure periodic maintainance, pump it up with the costly petrol, clean it, the need to pay road tax and a potential higher car insurance.

Try telling that to a father who is fetching two of his kids to school early in the morning. This is happening right in Kuala Lumpur itself. Don't need to describe about the rural areas.

Because of government protection accorded on Proton, higher duties were imposed on all other foreign made cars which made it quite impossible for low-income (I would say even above average Malaysians are affected) Malaysians to own one. These foreign made cars, even though of better quality and safety standards, are placed out of reach in that Malaysians will be forced to opt for a cheaper version i.e. the Proton cars.

I have heard before that one of the main reasons for imposing high duties on foreign made cars was to reduce the number of cars being driven on the roads. But why produce local cars that are cheaper where more people can buy it then. It contradicts.

Surprisingly, Proton cars could be bought at a cheaper rate even though it was exported out of Malaysia. No duties imposed by those countries? What about the freight charges?

In Saudi Arabia, Proton cars are sold at unbelievable low prices. It's not only in Saudi but the same in many other countries where Proton is being sold.

Worse still, the quality/specs are much better for those exported Proton cars. Apparently, it's to meet the minimum quality/safety standards in those countries.

Shouldn't these low prices be the same as in Malaysia for those low-income Malaysians?

Why are we benefitting the foreigners?

Low-income Malaysians subsidised those cars being exported?

Related post - Prices of Cars in Canada
Related post - Proton Cars Being Ridiculed in UK

Reading: Chor lauds Proton for making cars affordable - Star
Reading: Proton - Prices & Specs - Drive Arabia
Tags: Malaysian Car Prices, Saudi Arabia, Proton, Car

Rubbish Dump Fire

Few weeks back in the late Sunday afternoon, a plot of land behind my residential area was burning out of control. Not sure if it was an illegal dumping ground or that it belongs to some factories there.

It was about 150m away from the last row of houses in the residential area.

It was thick black smoke. Though I can't smell anything but ashes were raining down on those witnessing the fire. Toxic?

Within seconds on seeing that it was quite serious, I asked those two guys who were standing there earlier "Have anyone made a call to the fire station?". They responded "Don't know, we just came only". They were there before I arrived ..........

That's our public apathy. Each one waiting for someone else to do it and these people will be fast to blame others for not doing anything if something was to happen to them.

When I called the emergency number 999, the operator asked for details of the area on fire. I told her it's behind my residential area and I told her it was somewhere near the Kg. Bohol area. That operator was not sure of the place and asked me to provide a more detailed address.

I told her it was a fire burning into the forest area. I have told her on the estimated route to go that area. Still she requested for more details saying that the place is not easily understood.

Fed up, I told her to just pass the call to the fire station nearest to my place, which is the Bukit Jalil fire station. I told her if the personnels at Bukit Jalil fire station were to come out from their fire station, they would definitely see the thick black smoke and they'll be guided by that smoke signal. I guarantee that because I'm seeing it with my own eyes (raising my voice at this point).

She could sense my seriousness now. When the call was passed to the Bukit Jalil fire station, the guy who took my call said that they already knew about the fire and had dispatched their personnels there. Good job! But not for the operator because she was wasting precious time.

At this point of time, a number of the neighbours were there to geh poh chi (busybody). Not one person asked whether a call was made to the fire station.

Saw one guy, seems like a reporter or something like that, busy taking pictures with his high end camera and other gadgets but didn't make any calls to the fire station.

The best is yet to come ........ after standing there for a moment I noticed two elderly men came in their car. Walking to the spot where you can see this fire with the best view.

And he said this "Don't know whether the firemen are already there to put out this fire".

I felt like saying "Uncle, if you haven't made the call to the fire station, how do you expect them to be there?".

That's Malaysia and maybe for many Malaysians.

Some complained about the government day in day out but when you asked them whether they have voted in the last general election .............. do you know the answer? ....... Its a big NO!
Tags: Public Apathy, Bukit Jalil Fire Station

Hyped Up TM Technology

I wrote this email to Telekom Malaysia ("TM") on 8 March 2010:-

----------------------------
From: Johnny Ong
Sent: Monday, March 08, 2010 2:00 PM
To: 'help@tm.com.my'
Subject: Availability of TM fixed line and internet
Importance: High

Dear TM,

May I know when could I apply and have access to TM fixed line and internet service at the following address –

***, Jalan ***** *
******* ***** ***** ***** **
*****Kuala Lumpur

Please note that in Jan 2010, TM Point staff has indicated that the said TM services are still not available for Phase 2A residents even though Phase 1 and 2 are well connected.

Regards,
Johnny Ong
----------------------------

Very disappointed that till today, no response from TM.

So, I wrote another email to TM on 25 March 2010:-

----------------------------
From: Johnny Ong
To: tmhsbb@tm.com.my; help@tm.com.my
Sent: Thu, March 25, 2010 8:25:36 AM
Subject: No TM Line Available

Dear TM,

Please don't hype up the HSBB when TM don't even want to commission a simple telephone line at my place of residence. Excuse given was insufficient applicants = to my understanding, profit is more important than providing the necessary service.

Sent an email to help@tm.com.my on 8 March on the same issue and no response after 2 weeks, great isn't it?

Regards,
Johnny Ong
***, Jalan ***** *
******* ***** ***** ***** **
*****Kuala Lumpur
----------------------------

Yeah, I told TM not to hype up their new UniFi (High Speed Broadband) ("HSBB") service when they can't even provide the basic. I can't even subscribe to their normal internet package, what more this HSBB.

I'm not surprised to read this article Consumers let down by cap on UniFi packages in Star newspaper where it mentioned the following:-

* Some are disappointed over what they feel are expensive charges for the packages for home users: RM149 for 5Mbps, RM199 for 10Mbps, and RM249 for 20Mbps.

* In Singapore, a 1Gbps (gigabit per second) service – which is five times the speed of a 20Mbps connection – only costs about RM200.

* But the real disappointment is the realisation that the UniFi packages have a cap on the amount of data that can be downloaded.

* The consumers bristled when they learned that the 5Mbps service is capped at 60GB of data per month. The 10Mbps service is capped at 90GB while the 20Mbps service has a 120GB cap.

* They were even more disappointed to learn that the data download caps are calculated on a daily basis.

* Consumers were further horrified to learn that if they exceeded their daily download limit, their high-speed broadband connections would be throttled down to about 10% of the purchased speed.

Related post - Poor Telecommunication Infrastructure
Tags: Telekom Malaysia, TM, UniFi, High Speed Broadband, HSBB, TM Fixed Line, Internet Service, TM Point, Gigabit Per Second

War Declared On USA

George Bush was sitting in his office wondering whom to invade next when his telephone rang.

'Hello, Mr. Bush!' a heavily accented voice said, 'This is Gurmukh from Phagwara, District Kapurthala, Punjab .. I am ringing to inform you that we are officially declaring the war on you!'

'Well, Gurmukh,' Bush replied, 'This is indeed important news! How big is your army?'

'Right now,' said Gurmukh, after a moment's calculation, 'there is myself, my cousin Sukhdev, my next door neighbor Bhagat, and the entire kabaddi team from the gurudwara. That makes eight.'

Bush paused. 'I must tell you, Gurmukh that I have one million men in my army waiting to move on my command.'

'Arrey O! Main kya..' said Gurmukh. 'I'll have to ring you back!'

Sure enough, the next day, Gurmukh called again.

'Mr. Bush, it is Gurmukh, I'm calling from Phagwara STD, the war is still on! We have managed to acquire some infantry equipment!'

'And what equipment would that be, Gurmukh' Bush asked.

'Well, we have two combines, a donkey and Amrik's tractor.'

Bush sighed. 'I must tell you, Gurmukh, that I have 16,000 tanks and 14,000 armored personnel carriers. Also, I've increased my army to 1-1/2 million since we last spoke.'

'Oh teri....' said Gurmukh. 'I'll have to get back to you.'

Sure enough, Gurmukh rang again the next day.

'Mr. Bush, the war is still on! We have managed to get ourselves airborne..... We've modified Amrik's tractor by adding a couple of shotguns, sticking on some wings and the pind's generator. Four school pass boys from Malpur have joined us as well!'

Bush was silent for a minute and then cleared his throat. 'I must tell you, Gurmukh, that I have 10,000 bombers and 20,000 fighter planes. My military complex is surrounded by laser-guided, surface-to-air missile sites. And since we last spoke, I've increased my army to TWO MILLION!'

'Tera pala hove....' said Gurmuk, 'I'll have to ring you back.'

Sure enough, Gurmukh called again the next day.

'Kiddan, Mr.Bush! I am sorry to tell you that we have had to call off the war.'

'I'm sorry to hear that,' said Bush. 'Why the sudden change of heart'

'Well,' said Gurmukh, 'we've all had a long chat over a couple of lassi's, and decided there's no way we can feed two million prisoners of war!'

--------------------------
Now, this is what I call CONFIDENCE!
Tags: Confidence, Humour, Funny, George Bush, Phagwara, Kapurthala, Punjab, Prisoners Of War

Australian Ghost Story

This story happened a while ago in Brisbane, and even though it sounds like an Alfred Hitchcock tale, it's true.

John Bradford, a Sydney University student, was on the side of the road hitch hiking on a very dark night and in the midst of a storm. The night was rolling on and no car went by. The storm was so strong he could hardly see a few feet ahead of him.

Suddenly he saw a car slowly coming towards him and stopped. John, desperate for shelter and without thinking about it, got in the car and closed the door, just to realize there was nobody behind the wheel and the engine wasn't on!

The car started moving slowly. John looked at the road and saw a curve approaching. Scared, he started to pray, begging for his life. Then, just before he hit the curve, a hand appeared through the window and turned the wheel.

John, paralyzed with terror, watched how the hand appeared every time they came to a curve. John saw the lights of a pub down the road so gathering strength, jumped out of the car and ran to it. Wet and out of breath, he rushed inside and asked for two shots of tequila. He then started telling everybody about the horrible experience he went through.

A silence enveloped everybody when they realized he was crying and ... wasn't drunk.

About 15 minutes later, two guys walked into the same pub. They were also wet and out of breath. Looking around and seeing John Bradford sobbing at the bar, one said to the other, *'Look, Bruce ....... here's the idiot that got in the car while we were pushing it.' *
Tags: Australian Ghost Story, Ghost Story, Funny, Humour, Brisbane, Alfred Hitchcock

The Simple And Extravagant

A super exposed picture but nevertheless caught the essence of it. Friends partaking Sudanese style food.

We had this at the Kandahar market area.

That's the grilled lamb in the middle of the lot. Fresh vege salad right in front of me. The one of the right is a mixture of tomatoes, cucumber with mayonnaise, pepper and a mixture of some local spice. Really good taste. The one at the top is fried lamb liver.

This is the simple meal. It comes with a concocted mixture of local yoghurt / 7-Up that made it nice and soothing after a heavy meal. It cost about 90 SDG (US$1 = 2.60 SDG). Yeah, you wouldn't believe the cost of living here.

The extravagant has to be tasted at a much more stylo place. It has to be in a local hotel. We chose the better hotel known as the Burj Al-Fateh Hotel. A new hotel owned by Libyans.

Even this swing door (forgotten the name used for this kind of door lah) is nicely decorated with animals (made of wood) placed in between glass panels.

The internal architectural design while looking up.











We went to the Mugran Restaurant which serves buffet dinner. What else man.










About thirteen colleagues were together for the once in a while gathering. Need to de-stress at times. Not de-stress from work but more of the life here.








The colleague who can't hide her excitement in seeing so much food. The food, in terms of choices, being served is akin to those 4 stars hotel in Malaysia.








Saw this floor guide in the lift and I seldom see people use "negative one" to signify a floor level.

You can tell it has links to Libya by the names there.











The nice facade taken outside the hotel.











This hotel is really quite grand with its architectural design and it shows that Sudan is progressing towards a better lifestyle.

Albeit, at a higher cost of living as well.

Exposed picture again. Took this from within the car as we were leaving.
Tags: Kandahar, Burj Al-Fateh Hotel, Buffet Dinner In Khartoum

Pricey Drink & Weird Food Name

As I was walking around the Dubai airport duty free area, I noticed a large glass casing at the area where alcohol is being sold.

Went nearer to see what it was.

Oh ..... the Remy Martin brand.

I wonder who will buy this bottle at a price of 142,200 Dirham or at US$39,500.

At a Dubai hotel, I saw this meal by the name of Ratatouille. Basically it's just mixed vegetables.
Tags: Dubai Duty Free, Dubai, Ratatouille, Remy Martin, Grande Champagne Cognac, Black Pearl Magnum