It was a chance meeting on the road. Richard was heading off for lunch and I happened to be driving right behind his car. A few shouted comments past each other’s wound-down windows and I found myself enjoying some really good wan ton mee near Century Gardens.

Much of what we discussed will not find its way here, but the upshot of it revolves around the fact that he’s doing really well, and that I should, to paraphrase, consider moving elsewhere. And I have, for the nth time considered this.

But considering options at this stage would be premature. I know my worth; I was confirmed in it about 2 months back when I had an alternative offer. But plans are plans, and they must be followed through, if only to gain that bit of information I require to make my decision. I will have to see if AK delivers on his promise/word. If he doesn’t, then we must part ways, no matter the relationship we have.

Talking with Richard is always a game. He tells me what he wants me to know, perhaps wishing me to distribute the information, and sometimes he tells me things to convince me of his own position; i.e. he usually has a hidden agenda. This lunch session was no different, but after chatting with him for about 2 hours concerning work and everything in between, I realised why Koh maintains a fascination with him; he makes you feel as if you’re not an employee, not a ma chai or underling, but an equal.

That and the fact that we used to be closed to Richard, made me miss talking to him. I came away with a sense of what was out there in the market, and the sort of opportunities I was letting slip past me. It was a good experience overall.

Speaking of turning corners, the government seems to have decided that importers of foreign cars which compete directly with Proton are to be levied heavy charges for, apparently, under-declaring their values at Customs and selling them at competitive prices to customers in Malaysia. A snippet of this piece of news can be found here at the New Straits Times website.

The affected brands would be Kia, Chevrolet, Hyundai, Chery, Fiat and Mahindra Scorpio. Korean cars, in particular, have been enjoying burgeoning sales in the past few months due to competitive pricing; in the light of alternatives to Proton, many have taken refuge in purchases of these cars, and who can blame them? Their levels of quality, especially so for Hyundai cars, are very high.

The furore over this imposed charge, of 30% against sales price for vehicle capacities 1.6 litres and below, and 38% for vehicles above 1.6 litres is considerable, but the government has waved them off, noting that similar charges were imposed last year.

In response, the Association of Malay Importers and Traders of Motor Vehicles president Datuk Abdul Hamid Ibrahim has come right out and declared that said brands would not survive due to the immense competition in Malaysia, which is probably double-speak for saying “Only Proton will prosper”. This news snippet can be found here.

See, my question is: why isn’t anyone looking into the culpability of the Immigrations Officers who approve the imports of these vehicles? Open market prices for the vehicles of the affected brands are available; if they are available, Customs should have taken the trouble to investigate the prices being declared and if they did, they would have brought up charges against these said importers, wouldn’t they? But why didn’t they? Throughout the AP debacle, the Immigrations Department has been conspicuously silent; it’s time someone high up start asking questions of them.

But apart from that, I can imagine the sheer frustration of people who are looking to buy cars from other makes besides Proton; a Hyundai Getz 1.6 now retails at RM 77,000.00 OTR. This is already exorbitant for a car that is considered elsewhere as a ‘budget car’. An increase of 30% against the sales price would push that figure up to RM 100,100.00, about the price of a Proton Perdana 2.0 V6. What the hell?!