If you have read more than one day of Malaysian newspaper, definitely you will always see our politicians (usually from opposition parties, those from BN are hibernating until the next election) in action: they are such a bunch of down-to-earth people in the sense they attend to matters as mute as clogged drains, burst sewage pipes, sunken pavements, or broken road signs. To make sure you know and see the problems, they will even pose by pointing to the structure in question, and of course, also make sure the photographers have filmed them in an unequivocal light.
Though this is already part of our (and their) daily lives, what does this imply to our societal health as a whole?
First, isn't these issues should be addressed by the individual municipal officers? Where are they, and why we must have high ranking MPs or state representatives to look at clogged drains? The most amazing thing is despite the glaring mis-steps and plain negligence, there is no one held responsible for the mess, and there is no change at all at the root of the problems. There is not even remedial steps taken, let alone heads rolling. If the government will take the step to fire a few of its useless staff (which actually comprises most of the staff anyway), I am sure those so called government servants will sit up and pay attention.
Second, when a country where those leaders are not addressing the real challenges, but only squabbling on making something tallest, biggest, or going on tour to watch belly dancing, or screwing other races for not singing the national anthems right, where is this nation heading? In Singapore, the government not only is able to identify the issues on hand, but it also looks pro-actively at all nascent trends. For example SG has invested like crazy in bio-technology 5 years ago, although the return of investment on this sector is hard to measure in near term, at least it has tried. Do I need to pan the camera back to our beloved government and see what it is up to?
I have had enough of 'setting up special committee' and terms like 'we will investigate this matter further'. Fine, after years of investigation, I can't see things getting better. With fuel price getting higher and higher, the inflation pressure hits hard on common folks. Salaries are depreciating in value due to inflation and the depreciation of the ringgit, further more, with falling foreign direct investment, job opportunities also shrink (FYI, Inventec withdraws from Penang now), I foresee the people will have to endure a double-hit: ever-increasing prices for almost everything, and sky-high crime rate in the months to come.
For those in Malaysia, good luck (trust me, you need that)
2 comments:
Malaysia's idea of R&D investing is buying huge areas at low prices from unsuspecting smallholders, partitioning them into smaller parcels and selling them at astronomical prices to GLC developers, and, finally, building lots of office blocks on those parcels and selling or renting them for even higher prices.
What's the R&D here? Renting and developing (as in land).
I think most of the govt. politicians don't care that the true worth of the country is the man-power and not the office blocks. Would anyone want to come here and buy their overpriced office blocks if the man-power is below par? Let's see how long this will last.
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