Budi95 – fuelling locals’ greed?

THERE’S this meme going round. The Beast – the official car of the President of the United States – is parked at a petrol station, refuelling.

The caption says the President had invited the Malaysian Prime Minister to join him for a ride in the moving fortress.

The reason? To get Anwar’s MyKad and, therefore, access to RON95 petrol at RM1.99 a litre.

Of course, it’s a joke. I very much doubt that the multimillion-ringgit Cadillac uses our RON95 petrol, and Prime Minister Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim has made it clear he pays the full price of RM2.60 a litre and does not benefit from the Budi95 subsidy scheme.

But it was funny – and strangely enough, it drove home a point. The MyKad of locals are being used to allow foreigners to buy fuel.

I have had my own experience with that. It was two days before Deepavali and after a hectic day of driving – from Klang to Brickfields and Petaling Jaya – I stopped at a petrol station.

At a dark corner of the station, there was a large group of young motorcyclists, about a dozen bikes and a score of kids, all teens.

One of the bikers pulled out and rode up beside my car. “Uncle,” the lad called. “You want to fill petrol? Full tank?” I nodded.

“You can use my friend’s MyKad,” he offered, pointing to the pillion rider.

I am not one for quick comebacks, so I went blank. “No, no, I have my own MyKad,” was all I could blurt out as I headed to the counter.

I quickly filled up and left. I had no intention of becoming a victim of some angry kid who might, in a fit of anger, scratch my car paint or something.

It was only later that I got to thinking. Why exactly did the lad make me the offer? How did he expect to gain anything from it? Why would anyone use his MyKad if they had their own and were eligible for the subsidy scheme?

If I had used his card, it would have cost me RM1.99 a litre, the same as using my own identity card. So, how did he expect to profit from the scheme?

Maybe I look like a foreigner. Then, it could work. A foreigner, who would have to pay the full RM2.60 per litre, could fill up at the subsidised rate using the boy’s MyKad, giving him a savings of 61sen a litre. If he paid the kid 20sen a litre, he would still save 41sen per litre.

And for a 50-litre fill-up, the kid would still get RM10. If he hawked his full 300 litre quota, that would be RM60.

It’s not much, but it is fair ­takings for some boy from a poor family or one who needs a quick fix. And there was a whole gang of biker kids at the petrol station.

That was in Petaling Jaya. Apparently, it is worse in the ­border states like Perlis, Kedah and Kelantan.

Fuel usage patterns in that part of the country have revealed a strange trend – many are exhausting their full 300-litre a month quota in a big hurry, according to a report in Hong Kong’s South China Morning Post.

That includes motorcyclists. Their machines can barely use 30 litres a month, yet they finished 300 litres in just eight days!

The conclusion seems quite obvious – the petrol is going to someone else.

And that someone is likely to be a smuggler who sells the petrol across the border where it costs some 30% more.

The rationale for the subsidy rationalisation was simple. Only the deserving should receive the government largesse, certainly not foreigners.

The super-rich – the multi-millionaires and the billionaires – were also not supposed to be on the list.

As things turned out, they were. And all Malaysians regardless of wealth now receive the subsidy. I don’t think there is anything wrong with that. The rich pay taxes and they should benefit from their tax money, too.

But foreigners? No. And worse, smugglers?

The scheme was also meant to bring an end to smuggling of fuel. If the statistics in the northern border are anything to go by, it is not doing that.

Instead, it seems to be fuelling the greed of locals who are happily joining hands with smugglers, creating a “shadow economy bonus”, according to the South China Morning Post report.

To be fair, the Budi95 scheme is a success and has made life easier for the average Malaysian – although e-hailing drivers are still complaining.

Still, it seems to have brought new problems of its own. The cops now have more criminals and pseudo smugglers to hunt down.

Thankfully, it has also exposed one criminal who has been in hiding for so long. We now know that Indira Gandhi’s husband, Riduan Abdullah, who absconded with her child, Praana Diksa, despite a court order is still in the country – in one of those northern border states.

He, too, is said to be enjoying the Budi95 subsidy while the cops remain clueless as to where he is. They think he is abroad, but he has already used up at least 100 litres of his 300-litre quota. Hopefully, the cops can find him now.

There is more incentive, too.

An organisation has offered RM50,000 for information on the whereabouts of Riduan, formerly known as K. Patmanathan. RM50,000, obviously, is far more tempting than the measly RM60 or so a person could earn from smugglers.

And one more thing. Remember when I left in a hurry after the kid approached me at the station? I was in such a rush that I left my MyKad behind.

Apparently, there are a whole lot of people like me who have done the same, and petrol stations are tired of holding on to customers’ MyKad.

After the cops, the National Registration Department could also be facing a headache soon.