Diana Chin, The Sun
Sat, 14 Jun 2008
GEORGE TOWN (June 13, 2008): Gerakan Acting President Tan Sri Dr Koh Tsu Koon says the federal government suffers from a “credibility gap” and needs to fix it to restore public confidence in its policies.
Koh said the federal government should take measures to cushion the impact of the sudden fuel price hike by immediately bridging the “credibility gap” which had led to persistent negative perception and reaction by the public.
“From feedback we received, a week after the fuel price hike, despite various government announcements, the general public is still feeling unhappy and skeptical towards the government,” Dr Koh said in a press release today.
He suggested that to solve the problem, the government must speed up the pace of improvement in various institutions such as the judiciary, the anti-corruption agency and the police force.
He added that though it is not perceived as being directly related to the fuel price hike, concrete steps to restructure these institutions will assure the public that the country’s revenue and taxpayers’ money will not go to waste due to corruption and leakages.
“At the same time, the government must also take immediate concrete steps to improve public transportation by abolishing road tax for taxis, factory and school buses, etc, while pushing to put more buses on the road. The government should subsidise public transportation to make it more affordable and accessible to the common people,” said Koh.
He explained that hastening the pace of institutional reform and improving public transport will allow restoration of public confidence towards the government and reduce the credibility gap, allowing the public to be more ready to accept and even support this unpopular yet necessary policy to reduce fuel subsidy.
“The public will also be more willing to share the burden of higher fuel costs, adjust to a more prudent lifestyle, adopt resource-conservation measures and shift to public transportation,” he said.
“We shall then get the desirable results of having government credibility restored and ensuring economic and ecological sustainability. The fuel price hike may turn out to be a blessing in disguise.”
Updated: 05:21PM Fri, 13 Jun 2008