Malaysia’s PM Anwar Ibrahim gets cracking on nationwide egg shortage as he addresses cost of living

Consumers and retailers complained of an erratic supply of price-controlled eggs, which officials said was due to higher demand after Covid curbs eased

Some social media users claimed scarcity was due to egg ‘cartels’ allegedly holding back supply to affect the chances of certain politicians in the recent election

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Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim. Photo: Bernama/dpa

Published: 8:30am, 30 Nov 2022Updated: 1:56pm, 30 Nov 2022

Days into Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim’s premiership, there’s no time for a honeymoon period as he gets cracking on addressing an egg shortage so severe, it has attracted claims of a cartel conspiracy.

Consumers and retailers have complained there has been an inconsistent supply of price-controlled eggs, which public officials said was due to high demand after Covid-19 regulations eased.

“With the economy now fully reopened and people confident enough to travel and spend, there is an increase in food consumption beyond what was expected,” Department of Statistics Malaysia chief statistician Mohd Uzir Mahidin was quoted as saying by English newspaper The Star on Tuesday.

Chicken and eggs are pictured at a poultry farm in Mentakab, Malaysia’s Pahang state. Photo: AFP

The egg shortage was a popular topic in the recently concluded Malaysian general election, one which Anwar himself had used to highlight the purported failure of his predecessors who were in charge during the pandemic.

“Three years came and went from [former prime ministers] Muhyiddin Yassin to Ismail Sabri [Yaakob] … but we don’t even have eggs now,” Anwar said on November 6 when stumping for his Pakatan Harapan coalition in the northern island state of Penang.

Anwar, who clinched the top job last Thursday after 24 years of trying, has since pledged to make bread-and-butter issues a key focus of his administration. But his earlier criticism of previous governments may leave him with egg on his face.

Social media was flooded with posts of pallets of eggs stacked up in supermarkets in the aftermath of Anwar’s appointment to office, sparking some claims of egg “cartels” allegedly holding back supply to artificially create scarcity to scuttle the chances for Ismail Sabri’s Barisan Nasional alliance in the recent polls.