IT'S amazing sometimes when you look at how a situation can change within such a short time. I remember that it was only 10 months ago when petrol station operators were warned not to reduce their business hours arbitrarily without approval from the government.

Their argument was that business between midnight and 6am was limited and the expenses did not commensurate with profits. Safety was another reason cited. That was then.

Now it's the reverse, with the government telling the stations to operate only from 6am to midnight. Anyone wishing to open round-the-clock will need permission from the Domestic Trade and Consumer Affairs Ministry. Minister Shahrir Samad said earlier that the reason behind the shorter hours was to save energy.

When the operators wanted to reduce their operational hours last year a blame game and claims and counter-claims were heard. The petroleum companies said the operating permits stated that the stations must open 24 hours a day 365 days a year while the dealers insisted that the permits were silent on this, pointing out instead to a clause that only said a station cannot remained closed for a stretch of 24 hours. The ministry came into the fray and made clear the government position which was not in favour of shorter operating hours.

The other points of contention put forward by the dealers were commissions which remained unchanged despite increases in the pump prices and the commission imposed by the petroleum companies on payments by credit cards. The latter remains a contentious issue but the commissions on sales for both petrol and diesel have now been increased, giving dealers one reason less to be grumpy.

The real world of (political) governance
Selangor Mentri Besar Khalid Ibrahim yesterday insisted that he had never spoken on behalf of the Anti-Corruption Agency regarding the allegation of abuse of power by his former aide. Instead he said that based on a letter dated June 11 by the ACA he had merely stated that the "investigation had been completed".

For the record, the press at that time all quoted Khalid as stating that "the ACA said there was no abuse of power or involvement" by the officer. But never mind that because Khalid now appears to be facing a bigger test or challenge to his leadership of the Selangor administration in the form of dissatisfaction by a majority of the PKR division heads in Selangor.

That he has been bungling far too often for his comfort in just 100 days at the helm is a fact. The delay in naming the new local councillors is one and the money contributed by companies for the 100-day celebrations by the Selangor PR government another.

As we now know the monies donated were deposited into the PKR accounts, not a fund managed by the state. What is unclear is who asked the companies to donate. Khalid said he was going to ask the companies if there were any strings attached. Common sense tells me that no company will ever admit even if their arms were twisted before donating or that carrots were dangled before their very eyes.

Khalid had also admitted that the PR loose coalition may have been over-zealous in drawing up their election manifestoes. I think so and wrote about this earlier, drawing some unsavoury comments from PR followers. My suspicion was that people like Khalid may have not been involved in drawing up the manifestoes. I'm sure the brains responsible just wanted to first and foremost entice for votes and deal with the problems later. I can imagine the dialogue: "Ahh no problemla..... even if we can't deliver we'll look for the justifications later. Our priority is to first win the elections. For the next elections there will be new manifestoes anyway."

As I had pointed out I don't think those responsible went through the numbers although many of the major pledges involve money. For if they had they would have realised that it would have been near impossible to deliver even as little as 10% of the pledges.

What exactly do they want?
The federal government has decided that another round of high-level effort is what is required to resolve the illegal immigrants issue in Sabah and for this a task force to be headed by DPM Najib Razak is to be formed.

But Anifah Aman, a backbencher representing Kimanis who has been highly critical of the federal government over this problem, now says that the task force is unconstitutional as it goes against a provision in the federal Constitution which gives power to regulate and control immigration matters in Sabah and Sarawak to a state authority, in this case the chief minister.

Assuming that I agree with him, my question is why did Anifah all this while target the federal government for blame over this long standing problem in his state? This was a question I posed in an earlier post here. If indeed to him immigration is a state matter Anifah should be barking at no one else but his brother Musa the chief minister and vent his anger and frustration there. But no; Anifah and every other politician in Sabah has been blaming KL for this problem.

And now opposition politician Jefrrey Kitingan of PKR says the real problem is Project IC, not the illegal immigrants themselves because the latter to him is a "normal problem".

Enough confusion for now.