It seems that the governments ploy to divert attention away from last year's exorbitant fuel price hike has been extremely successful. Why? Because everyone today is more interested in the extra toll they are paying in the Klang Valley region rather than the extra that they are paying for fuel (which they first need to use any road).

Not that I'm not affected by the toll rate hikes but I think most of us have fallen for the government's brilliant tactics in diverting attention away from key issues.

Let me just give your readers a quick look at our fuel pump prices compared to what's on Bloomberg's energy prices . Let's take an exchange rate at a conservative US$1 = RM3.70

Malaysian fuel pump price: RM 1.92/litre

Nymex Crude (Jan 3, 2007): US$58.32/barrel = RM1.357/litre

(1 barrel = 158.9873 litres)

Nymex RBOB Gasoline Future: US$1.5489/gallon = RM1.26/litre

(1 gallon = 4.5461 litres)

So how much more are we paying per litre than we should be? Probably around RM0.50 more per litre. Well, that means, someone is making money out of each and every Malaysian that has to go to the petrol pump. Hey, don't blame me. If we have anyone to blame, it's ourselves. We put this government in place, we let them get away with cheating the public, we let them steal right out of our pockets.

Too bad that we don't see any new anti-fuel-hike demonstrations anymore. Wish there were. Let's all ask the government to come clean and if they don't want to maybe the voters at Batu Talam can help send a strong message to BN during the coming by-election.

For all we know, the government could be trying to milk every last ringgit out of our pockets just until before the next general election, then reduce the fuel prices. Knowing full well Malaysians are the type that have short-term memories, the government smugly knows voters will happily go to the ballot boxes and cross our 'benevolent' BN back into power once more.

The BN government says remember May 13, 1969. Well, I say, remember March 1, 2006 for the fuel-hike, remember June 1, 2006 for the electricity tariff hike and remember Jan 1, 2007 for the toll rate hike.

Guess what? Anyone see a pattern? Something else may be going up come June 1, 2007. Brace yourselves Malaysians. Why don't we be the ones to tell BN in the next election to just 'take a hike'.

Oh well. Just my RM0.50 worth.