The Department of Information’s media release about medicines prices was confirmation that the government was having a laugh at the cost of the country, the Labour Party said in a statement. The Prime Minister, the Health Minister and the Finance Parliamentary Secretary had been for two years making promises about getting medicines prices reduced.

But the facts confirmed that among the heaviest burdens weighing down on families and elderly people were the ever-rising prices of medicines. According to the government’s own estimates on price movements on personal care and medicines, what used to cost Lm100 at the last election, today cost Lm117.

For months medicines prices had been rising unrestrainedly but now, on the eve of the general election, in a bid to appear to be doing something, a statement was issued every now and then about price cuts for some medicines. The cuts, however, were never enough to make good for the explosion in prices in these past years. The country did not need these gimmicks, the Labour Party said.

The agreement with medicines importers showed a lack of genuineness. Firstly, the importers had not bound themselves to check the prices of all their products. And secondly, importer Reginald Fava, president emeritus of the Chamber of Commerce, has warned that when the agreement expired, the country would see a prices explosion. It all showed that the government was laughing at the cost of the people, the Labour Party said.

The commitment against price rises had to be genuine, not one which appeared only on the eve of a general election. Labour in government would introduce the necessary structures seriously to keep under watch prices in sectors such as food, health and education. Every six months a report would be published about work carried out, and action would be taken against unjustified price movements, the Labour Party said.