Approved Permit Issue

"The price of car in Malaysia is 600% more expensive than its actual price!" That's mean that a brand new Proton Waja 1.6 only cost about RM66,000x100/600 = RM11,000. The price of Honda City is actually RM85,000 x 100/600 = RM14,166.

Thanks to our former prime minister Tun Dr Mahathir for requesting the names of the approved permit (AP) holders to be published to the public. If he didn't mention about this, until now we also don't know the real problem.

According to a newspaper report, a famous branded imported car 1.0 litre from South Korea only cost about RM8,762 when it arrived to Port Klang. But, after the tax imposed to the car, the car value may only cost about RM22.868. The car then sold by the approved permit holder at RM46,000. Now we can see that the approved permit holder can so much money by just selling a car. A low level car from south korea can gain RM20,000 profit already. How about the higher level car like BMW and Mercedes? The profit is sure higher than RM20,000 per unit.

The concept that our government protect our automobil is a good move but it must be look from other aspect as well. How long is our citizen need to suffer in order to buy other cars than Proton or Produa. Nowadays, car is a necessity as the public transportation system especially in Klang Valley is very bad. I am a public transport user and I know how its feel when using public transport. Not only that the bus is full but it seldom follows its schedule. Sometimes I have to wait for an hour to wait for a bus to go to a particular place. How is our country is going to develop if we have to wait for 1 hour just to go to a place? Don't see that 1 hour is just a small amount of time. What happen if one day, nearly 10,000 people have to wait an hour for bus. That's mean we already loose 10,000 hours! That's amount of time if use properly, can hasten our developed country status.

Now, we back to our national car. In 1984, when our prime minister Dr. Mahathir talked about our own national car we feel very happy at that time. But after 21 years, Dr. Mhathir still talked about the protection to the national car. We feel cheated that although after AFTA (Asean Free Trade Area), our cars still sold at a high price. In Singapore and Thailand where they don't have their own national car, can enjoy lower car price after AFTA.

I need to go now cao.