The recent fuel hike has come as a shock across people around Malaysia and especially from my homeland, Limbang, a remote and rural district at Sarawak. I believe that my plight will be shared by all the residents of rural areas in Sarawak and Sabah.

Sabah and Sarawak, being major contributors to nation for oil and gas do not get what we deserved. Mr PM and all other ministers and MPs of the rakyat , please bear in mind that Malaysia comprises of Peninsular Malaysia and East Malaysia. If you have forgotten about this, please go back to the books and learn the geography of Malaysia.

All the news since the oil price hike has been concentrated on the problems faced by the West Malaysians especially the people in the most developed part of our nation, namely Kuala Lumpur. Even though public transport in Kuala Lumpur is far from perfect, but at least there is something there resembling public transport.

Whereas, for us in such rural areas as Limbang, many of us do not even know what is public transport because it is almost non-existent here. We do not have any public buses running around the town and not to mention he absence of any LRT system.

Mr PM, how do you expect us to change our lifestyle? Do we have the choice? We are forced to have a small family car that is our nation’s pride the Perodua Kancil. We need to squeeze six of us into one small car because we are unable to afford anything more than that.

Without this family car, how do you expect to go to work, school, etc? Are you expecting us to us a kereta kerbau or bicycles? In this era of so-called progressive development for our nation and ‘Malaysia Boleh’, we are instead turning back in time to be more ancient rather than moving forward.

Now with the price of oil at RM2.70, it cost us approximately RM81 to get our tank full. Please bear in mind that the monthly income of the general public at Limbang is around RM500 per month apart from those people who work for banks and the government.

With the spiralling cost of food and other essentials, most of the people here are being forced to live as if we are in a wartime era. My neighbour has started talking about eating salted eggs for lunch or dinner.

I think the people in Limbang and other rural areas with the same plight have very good reason to continue receiving the subsidy from the government. Maybe the fuel price hike should have been done according to the level of income and location of the people.

KL people which have an average income which is six to seven times higher than those here and should be able to pay more for their fuel whereas people like us should be spare from this drastic price hike.

Leaders, please think when you make any decision or you should come and stay in Limbang or some other rural areas for a period of six months to get a taste of the life that we have even though we are in the same country.