theSun | WEDNESDAY MAY 27 2009 7

news without borders

It’s daylight robbery,

say pork sellers
THREE hikes in a month
in the ex-farm price of pigs
have set tongues wagging Press Digest
and led to a lot of finger- by Kong See Hoh
pointing. While pork sellers newsdesk@thesundaily.com
say it is daylight robbery,
the Federation of Livestock year, causing the farmers to in-
Farmers Association deems the cur losses to the tune of RM200
hikes inevitable. for each pig bred, at one stage.
The Veterinary Services De- “Many pig farmers have
partment (VSD) says it is not to closed shop,” he said.
be blamed, while the Domestic He pointed out that imported
Trade and Consumer Affairs frozen pork forced the ex-farm
Ministry has ignored a call by price of pigs to drop by RM150
pork sellers to intervene in the per 100kg within one month last
matter. year, but no one cared about the
According to a report in farmers.
Sin Chew Daily yesterday, the Tung said despite the recent
Selangor and Federal Territory hikes, the ex-farm price of pigs
of Kuala Lumpur Pork Sellers in Peninsular Malaysia is still
Association said raising the ex- cheap compared with Sabah
farm price of pigs three times and Sarawak, Singapore and
for a total of RM120 per 100kg Thailand. “How can pork sellers
within a month was an act of claimed they are being robbed?”
robbery. It said in a statement he asked.
that the quantum of hike, which Meanwhile, VSD director-
worked out to RM2 a kg for pork, general Datuk Dr Abdul Aziz
was shocking. Jamaluddin told the daily that
It also accused the federation the spate of pig price hikes had
of price manipulation by getting nothing to do with his depart-
the Health Ministry to ban the ment as it has never allowed any
import of frozen pork using the frozen pork to be imported.
A(H1N1) flu scare as excuse and He explained that the depart-
raising the price of pork before ment had permitted the import
the dumpling festival where pork of only frozen pig organs includ-
belly is one of main ingredients ing stomachs, frozen trotters and
for making “bak chang”. piglets.
National Pork Seller Asso- He said the claim that the ban
ciation chairman Goh Chui Lai on import of frozen pork because
said he will call for a meeting of the new flu had caused the
of its members to look into their pig price to go up did not hold
plight but declined to comment water. He attributed the current
on the “robbery” remark made high ex-farm price of pigs to a
by some members against pig shortage.
farmers. Deputy Domestic Trade
According to pork sellers, the and Consumer Affairs Minister
ex-farm price of pigs has gone up Datuk Tan Lian Hoe said the
from RM590 to RM710 per 100kg government will not intervene
following three hikes (April 19, in the movement of pork prices.
April 26 and May 17), but the She said in a free market, the
federation’s website showed prices are determined by supply
only a total increase of RM90 per and demand.
100kg over the period. However, she said if con-
Federation deputy president sumers believe the pork is
Tung Hong Chai said he has overpriced, they could use their
no intention to get dragged into buying power to boycott the
the verbal war but deemed the suppliers.
hikes as inevitable. He did not She believed that if consum-
discount the possibility that the ers boycott pork traders for a
price would go up further if more few days, the prices would come
fingers are pointed at farmers down.
instead of trying to understand She also urged farmers to
their predicament. lower the pig price slightly dur-
He told Sin Chew that the ing these economically trying
price of animal feed has more times to create a win-win situ-
than doubled in the past one ation.

Matriculation Dept urged to

state clearly details of courses
THE MCA Youth education
bureau has urged the Matricula-
tion Department to state clearly
details of the courses offered to
successful candidates to avoid
cases of students going into the
wrong fields, Nanyang Siang
Pau reported yesterday.
Bureau chief Chong Sin
Woon told a press conference
held at Wisma MCA in Kuala
Lumpur on Monday that MCA
Youth has received complaints
from more than 50 successful
applicants who found them-
selves mismatched, including a
student being arranged to study
accounting instead of the engi-
neering course offered.
Chong said some candidates
who aspired to become doc-
tors or pharmacists were told
to take up physics instead of
biosciences. He said when the
students made queries online,
they only knew they were being
offered to do sciences but there
was no indication whether it is
physics or biosciences.
He explained that apart from
Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM),
other public universities that
offer medical degree courses
require applicants to take up
biosciences.
As such, he said, the current
practice by the Matriculation
Department may give rise to
problems for students who
intend to take up medicine or
pharmacy.
He said the department has
rejected requests by some of the
mismatched students to be trans-
ferred to do the right courses,
citing constraints of places.