one after another

first it was bus (express bus) and taxi fares up on 1 may. then come the penang ferry price hike. then everyone knows on 05-05-05, the price of petrol and diesel went up. and whaddya know… after the announcement of the petrol/diesel hike, there was a clamour to raise prices by sundry shop retailers and food operators. oh not forgetting wet markets too.

phew! what in the world is happenning? why prices of so many things going up and up and up?

according to a report in bernama, our deputy PM had urged traders not to use the hike in prices of diesel and petrol as an excuse to raise prices of goods. but will the traders listened? of course not. already several traders had started increasing prices. yesterday’s ntv7 special news feature on this issue and it seemed that in several cities, there had been price hike already. in penang, notice that the price of eggs has gone up. terrible!

mini bus comes under stage bus too, right? when the bus fares hike was announced before 1 may, it was for express bus only, not stage bus. but now that diesel had gone up, the pan malaysian bus operators urged the government to let them impose a 5% surcharge. but how come mini bus fares had already increased? maybe mini bus does not comes under stage bus?

yes, exactly on the date of 05-05 when diesel/petrol price went up, mini bus suddenly increase their fare by 20 cents! it used to be at 80 cents and now it is RM1. how can they do that? why is there no government control on them?

i don’t mind paying RM1 for the mini bus if they provide good service but as it is currently, the service is rather bad. i don’t really mean the frequency of the bus but rather the condition of the bus. 80% of all mini buses in penang are in very bad condition and 90% of the time, the air-con is not working at all. like that how can?? we pay the RM1 part of it is for the air-con but always the air-con is not working. it is so damn hot inside the bus without air-con and especially when the bus is crowded… and of course to top it all, all windows and the 2 doors are closed. it’s like a furnace inside the bus. argh!!

another grouse is that mini buses usually drive dangerously. they weave in and out of traffic and they stop anywhere they like to pick up passengers or even to drop passengers. of course in this instance, the passengers share the blame too, as they knowing mini bus will stop anywhere, wherever they are, when they spy a mini bus appear, they will put their hand out to stop the bus.

it’s terrible the way the mini buses operates. i wonder can i make a complain? how? i wonder why the authorities never bother to book them? i feel like writing to the paper to air my grouses regarding these mini buses… but it will be to no avail except to just let my voice be heard. hmmm… perhaps i should go and see the penang chief police, DCP christopher wan, since he has a one day (in a week) ‘meet the people’ session.

note: read lone’s post on this subject.