Domestic Trade and Cost of Living Ministry to focus on enforcement in 2024, says Armizan

KOTA KINABALU: The year 2024 will be a full-on enforcement year for the Domestic Trade and Cost of Living Ministry.

Its minister Datuk Armizan Ali said he wants to focus on fighting leakages, misappropriation and the smuggling of subsidised goods such as diesel and other problems.

He said these crimes were an act of sabotage to the government giving subsidies and protection to people who needed it in this country.

"So for next year, we want to go all out to fight any form of wrongdoings for matters under our jurisdiction," he added.

"For those still thinking about committing any offence, stop it. Find other forms of income that are legal," Armizan said to reporters after a fun run family programme in Papar, Sunday (Dec 31).

Asked about continuous smuggling attempts of subsidised and controlled goods in Sabah, he said this was an ongoing fight and effort by the government to address the issue.

"For Sabah, we understand that we have such a huge sea border, so that is why we have so many enforcement and monitoring mechanisms in place," he said.

Armizan said this was among the reasons why the Federal government also came up with the SKDS 2.0 (subsidised diesel control system 2.0) and the introduction of fleet cards for gas stations and customers come 2024.

"But this fleet card system is designed for use in peninsula Malaysia first because Sabah and Sarawak do not have the targeted diesel subsidy yet, so Sabah and Sarawak will have other mechanisms," he said.

He called for the community to work with the government to ensure that there would be no more leakages and smugglings in future.

Speaking on the ongoing diesel shortage concerns in Sabah, Armizan said the matter shouldn’t be a problem any more because there was no issue of supply shortages or hoarding of supplies from any of the oil and gas companies in Sabah.

It was just that maybe some stations wanted to ensure that their supplies were stable and consistent during this high demand peak season, due to the holidays and celebrations, he said.

He said stations that were still having low supply issues were having this matter resolved as their suppliers were already on their way to refuel and resupply.

Prior to this, he said the problem was partly due to petrol stations limiting their sales as they waited for their quota to be approved by the authorities.