Cakap Cakap....

In my memory and in my time I have had the use of three ‘International” airports in KL. The first time I left for London it was from Sungai Besi. Years later when I left for Australia it was from Subang and yet many years later on coming back from Sydney to KL I landed at KLIA. 

KLIA has the prestigious Eagle Award for Best Airport from IATA – for outstanding performance in customer satisfaction, cost efficiency and continuous improvement? In my lifetime I have been to a number of airports. The only decent thing I can say about KLIA is that physically it is imposing and then it is downhill all the way. Landing at Singapore and then KL is like going from Suria KLCC to Campbell shopping Center (if it is still there!). Enough said. 

Now we have Putrajaya build at great expense as the Administrative Center of the Government. This I know. If I need to go see any Government Department in Putrajaya – it will take me a whole day by the time I get there, do my business and come back to KL. Parking is still a problem at Putrajaya and the cost of petrol and the time spent is ridiculous – and of course you have to pay toll both ways. 

Anything of importance happens in KL – so we have the Prime Minster and all the Ministers going to and fro between KL and Putrajaya to attend Parliment, Functions, Lunches, Dinners etc  ensuring time and money is again spent in the process – not to mention the irritating police escorts that accompany these VIP’s every time they travel.

They need a Stadium in Trengganu. Build one. That it collapsed shortly after is another testimony of”

“Satu Lagi Projek oleh Kerajaan Barisan Nasional”.

Transport problems in KL.? Build the LRT. Give it out to their cronies to run. When they have taken out all the money they can from the project – buy it back from them.

We have many cars that are not road worthy and a case can be made to say that they can be a hazard to road safety. A case can also be made to argue that the bloody traffic jams in KL does not allow any car to be driven at any speed. It is on the highway that they might become a hazard – and I can tell you that the owners of these dilapidated cars do not use the highway because they cannot afford the toll.

But create Puspakom – another corrupt money grabbing extension of the ‘projects for cronies’ – there are still many cars that are not road worthy – but at least there are more people making money earning wages form working with Puspakom and earning ‘commission’ again from the suffering public. How many horrific accidents have we had of buses in which scores of people have been killed?

I put it to you that if Puspakom had been doing their job, some of these accidents could have been prevented. If the Police have gone after the drivers for having so many unpaid summons – that could have prevented some of these accidents. If the Ministry of Transport or the relevant Ministry has been doing their job to educate these drivers to be better drivers some of these accidents could have been prevented.

The people need a local car? Done. We now have Proton,Kanchil and a few other ‘also’ ran companies. Where is the money made? If you get one of those ‘proton vendor’ appointments you are in the money. Of course the big item will go to the cronies first. But the crumbs are still ok – but do they care about quality control and supplying ‘value for money’ parts? Not when you brother is the CEO of Proton and your connections to the UMNO hierarchy reaches PWTC.

There was a time when getting a dealership for Proton Cars was a sure money thing – not any more. They now flog the cars for taxis and hopefully ‘export’. And I venture to make a prediction here. Soon, very soon if not already a fact, we will see Rafidah appointed Director or Chairman of one of these car related companies – preferable those doing the importing of foreign cars. Why? With all her experience in the Ministry of Trade and in the Government she will be able to contribute positively to the growth of any company(…ahem ahem..he he he).

Housing? What can I say about the construction companies that have not been said before? Suffice for me to say that the big money is in the arranging of these developers to buy state land for development. The Politicians are smart enough to know that after selling the state land to these developers – it is a downhill slide once the physical part of the project starts to happen. No big money there.

Every year we are faced with nation wide floods. And every year the same story is told again and again. No more next year. We are ready – we have the ‘SMART Tunnel” a purpose built storm water tunnel costing RM1.8 billion tunnel that will end flash flooding in Kuala Lumpur. It did not.

These disasters are preventable if you take out the equation of greedy politicians and civil servants colluding with unprincipled developers. Of course there are mitigating factors, countless excuses, a “hand on my heart’ swearing that it will never happen again promise…until the next time. Pity the Malaysian public – taken for a fool by its own leaders.