LIM Guan Eng has chided Putrajaya on its policy flip-flops, the latest being the U-turn on new electricity tariff that was to be implemented in February.

The DAP secretary-general was referring to Prime Minister Ismail Sabri Yaakob who yesterday said there will be no increase in tariffs, just a day after Energy and Natural Resources Minister Takiyuddin Hassan said the new tariff would be announced by the end of this month.

“As the country is still affected by the economic recession and the Covid-19 pandemic, Ismail had no choice but to bow down to public pressure, by freezing electricity tariffs increase as well as continuing subsidies worth more than RM700 million for domestic users.

“This is clearly a government not deserving of the people’s mandate with confused decision-making, policy flip-flops and loss of investor confidence,” he said in a statement.

Yesterday, Ismail said the cabinet had decided not to increase the electricity tariff for nine million domestic users and elected to continue with subsidies.

The Bagan MP said that once again the government has not learnt from the disastrous failures of serial total lockdowns and standard operating procedure U-turns.

This, he said, included double-standards in enforcement and policy flip-flops that have resulted in nearly 32,000 lives lost, 2.9 million Covid-19 infections and economic losses of more than RM500 billion.

Meanwhile, Lim also said that another example of policy flip-flopping is the recent boast by International Trade and Industry Senior Minister Azmin Ali that Malaysia is the most attractive country in Southeast Asia for foreign investments in 2022, citing data from little-known think-tank, the Milken Institute.

“This contradicts the recent announcement by former prime minister Muhyiddin Yassin that more should be done to make Malaysia more attractive and competitive among our neighbours.

“Azmin appears to imply that being the most attractive investment destination in Southeast Asia would allow Malaysia to record the highest investments in Asean.”

He added that Azmin should have practised full disclosure by revealing that the Milken Institute did not include Singapore in its study, even though Singapore is a member of Asean and located geographically in Southeast Asia.

“A more detailed analysis of the Milken Institute survey will be conducted and the findings announced after the Chinese New Year by DAP leaders.

“I do not want to see Azmin practise linguistic gymnastics again when Malaysia fails to record higher investments than Indonesia, Thailand, Singapore and even Vietnam in 2022.”

Lim said that in 2020, Malaysia recorded US$3 billion in foreign direct investment (FDI) compared to Singapore’s FDI of US$91 billion and Indonesia’s US$19 billion.

He also said that Vietnam had recorded US$16 billion, and even Cambodia had higher FDI than Malaysia at US$3.6 billion.

“What will Azmin do if Malaysia fails to exceed all these countries in 2022?” – January 29, 2022.