Adamant Ismail says boycott call taken ‘out of context’

An adamant Agriculture and Agro-based Industries Minister Ismail Sabri Yaakob has again defended his controversial call for a boycott of the Chinese over high prices, this time claiming that his statement was taken out of context.

He repeated to the audience of a forum last night not to prolong the issue as a racial one, but to focus on the intent of his message instead, which he said is to call on consumers to unite against traders who refuse to lower their prices despite falling oil prices.

“The cabinet has already agreed that we don’t need to drag on with this issue, because we should know that if we prolong racial issues, we should ask ourselves what is the ending that we are looking for. We need to ask.

“So it is better we return to the intent (of the message) in the interest of all consumers; use collective power to do something to these traders so that they would reduce prices and its benefits can be felt by all races,” he said.

Ismail (left) said this a forum organised by the Captain Hussein Leadership Academy - a leadership academy founded by Umno Youth - in Kelana Jaya yesterday.

At the forum themed ‘Middlemen profits: Valid or Sabotage’, a member of the audience asked Ismail to explain his controversial statement while another voiced discontent with “racial elements” in the minister’s Facebook statement and urged Ismail not to repeat it, prompting him to respond.

“My statement that day was simple, but (taken) out of context. My statement is simple, the message is clear: Consumers have the power to reduce prices. That is all,” he said.

Not all Chinese, just stubborn ones

Ismail has been in the spotlight since Monday after a screenshot of his comments on Facebook was circulated online, in which he called on Malays to boycott Chinese businesses to compel them to lower prices.

"The majority of consumers are Malays. The Chinese are the minority. If the Malays boycott their businesses, they will have no choice but to reduce prices," he wrote.

In the posting, Ismail also questioned the Old Town White Coffee restaurant chain’s halal credentials and claimed it is owned by the “Ngeh family (of) Perak DAP, which are anti-Islam”, likely referring to DAP's Sitiawan assemblyperson Ngeh Khoo Ham.

Old Town White Coffee has since denied having ties to any politicians or political parties, and vouched for its halal certification, while Ngeh said his lawyers are initiating legal action against Ismail Sabri.

As for Ismail Sabri, he had clarified shortly after the controversy erupted that he was referring to “stubborn Chinese traders” who refuse to lower their prices, and he wasn’t referring to DAP leader Ngeh Khoo Ham.

"Regarding my boycott call to Malays against Chinese traders, I was responding Facebook users who are angry at stubborn Chinese traders who don't want to cut prices," he said in another Facebook posting that Monday.

‘Don’t rely on gov’t’

Meanwhile at the forum last night, Ismail said there are also political considerations as well when he made his original statement, which is that the opposition seems to gain whether fuel prices go up or down.

When fuel prices go up, he said, prices of goods also increase and BN is blamed for the problem to the extent the coalition’s acronym is nicknamed “Barang Naik” (Prices of goods increase).

“When fuel prices go down and prices of goods also come down, the BN government should benefit because we are the one who lowered the prices. But the government didn’t benefit but was condemned instead for failing to reduce prices.

“So that is why I said it is best way for us to use our power (as consumers),” he said, adding that there is now greater public awareness among consumers of their collective bargaining power.

When met with reporters outside the forum later, Ismail was asked whether he condones the actions of a Facebook page to list companies and products supposedly owned by Chinese to boycott, offering a list of supposedly Malay-owned companies as alternatives.

The minister replied he was only telling consumers not to rely on the government and instead use their own power to change prices, and what consumers do with that power are merely details.

When asked whether he would support race-based boycotts however, he said, “No. I already said that for the benefit of all, any errant traders whether Malay, Chinese, or Indian cannot be spared. The focus is on errant traders.”

Asked if the 'Boycott Chinese companies' Facebook page is a positive move, Ismail Sabri curtly replied, “I don’t know.”

The Facebook page is knows as “Boikot Barangan Cina DAP ORI”, and has garnered over 54,000 “Likes” so far.

Apart from calling for the boycotts and urging for support for supposedly Malay-owned business, the page also levels various accusations against DAP leaders and voices support for Ismail’s controversial statement.

Asked to respond to Ngeh’s decision to sue him, Ismail said the Perak DAP leader has the right to do so and he shall see him in court.

‘I helped lower prices’

Earlier at the forum, the minister spoke at length about his efforts since 2013 to lower the prices of agricultural produce by cutting out the middlemen.

He said when he came into office as the agriculture minister, he felt that something was amiss when he learnt that his ministry has a large budget of about RM6 billion, and yet farmers, fishermen and breeders were poor.

He said the ministry’s efforts include founding farmers' or fishermens' associations to connect them directly to buyers instead of relying to middlemen to take their products to the market, and also holding farmers' and fishermens' markets.

He said these associations have succeeded in increasing the income of its members by 10 to 15 percent compared to non-members, although he said his efforts are only partially successful.

Among the challenges include convincing local councils to provide prime land for the markets and breaking the farmers' and fishermens' reliance of middlemen, the latter of which is partially due to culture, and partially due to cycles of debt with the middlemen.

Ismail also accused distributors of being responsible for the high vegetable prices during the floods in December, saying that claims of short supply during the year-end disaster were untrue.

This is because vegetable production areas such as Ulu Yam, Cameron Highlands and much of the West Coast were not hit by flood, he said, whereas the flood-hit East Coast only produces enough vegetables for local consumption and could not even buy vegetables from the West Coast because the markets were closed.

At the time, he said, vegetable prices shot up by 100 to 150 percent.

“I issued a statement that it is not true (that there is a shortage), and I proved it by creating a special farmers' market where prices were 20 to 60 percent lower than the normal markets.

“If the special farmers' market can sell at far lower prices up to 60 percent compared to normal markets, that means there is something is not right with the normal markets,” he said.

Because there is an alternative, he said the prices of vegetables began to come down in less than a month since the farmers' market opened.