Vision 2020 achieved

This is getting ridiculous.

Happened to read this on Elizabeth Wong's blogsite and it just made me snap.

“Santa must have had trouble getting to this part of the world, since it was only today he came a-calling at Sapura with a surveillance contract worth RM 1 billion.

Bernama’s Tengku Noor Shamsiah Tengku Abdullah reported late this afternoon on the likelihood of Sapura securing a Federal government contract to supply 3,000 cameras in major cities in the Peninsular, in anticipation of Visit Malaysia Year 2007, as well as for ‘security’.”

Work that out: You have a RM1 billion contract for 3,000 cameras. That's RM333,333 per camera installed. Sure, you need command posts and monitors etc to run the equipment, but c'mon guys, that's a freakin' semi-d for a camera. And is there a toll concessionaire-type contract after the fact to maintain it over the years?

Elizabeth also reveals in that same post that Sapura had earlier won a RM500 million contract to supply 3,000 field radios to the armed forces. That's RM166,666 per radio set.

We have 23 self-cleaning toilets installed throughout KL for a contract of RM9.2 million. That's RM400,000 a toilet.

Outrageous. Vision 2020 has been achieved 14 years early.

We must be a rich country, among the most developed in the world, to acquire these fancy machines at such prices. Correction...among the delusional in the world. This country has yet to reach its more basic targets - boats during floods, grade A infrastructure, 0% poverty, 100% literacy, the best universities and libaries, a well-paid and well-oiled civil service, a transportation system that works, a caring society - before it thinks fancy-shmancy.

Instead money being spent by this govt to acquire hi-tech products and services which are over-specified is reaching epic proportions.

It appears as pithy news for a day – 5 paragraphs max? – and the whole thing blows quietly away. No facts and figures breakdown, no tender, no dialogue, no explanations. Perhaps a titanium handshake to signify a bloated contract between devils.

In a culture bleeding with the liberal use of the Official Secrets Act, these conniving bastards have virtually a blank check to fatten their wallets. It is a closed loop; you and I are irrelevant in the scheme of things. You and I can gripe, but they’ll plain ignore. You and I are mere subordinates... peasant-folk in a feudal system cloaked as a democracy.

AAB may have crooned the sweetest promises of accountability and transparency in the 2004 elections, but he has failed miserably. If anything, as Prime Minister – a very powerful but increasingly-despised position – Sleepy Hollow is at the very least guilty of abetting this crippling culture.

What does one do with rot? Answer: You remove it.

Thank you, Singapore

How pitiful can the media get?

Bernama, The Star, and NST went to town in their coverage of the floods in the south. Good mileage was given to the various aid coming in from the govt, private sector and NGOs. The top two leaders were photographed carrying babies in different parts of the affected areas. The operations room in Pan Pacific Hotel, JB has a royalty manning the hotlines.

Cool.

What's not cool is this:
Two teams from jiran Singapore are now in Malaysia doing their bit in providing aid. The six-member Singapore Red Cross brought in S$10,000 worth of food and relief items, while a convoy of volunteers from Mercy Relief towed over hygiene kits and water filter equipment worth S$34,000 to Mercy Malaysia's relief centre in Muar.

These volunteers will skip Christmas with their island friends and families for one of sweat and hardship among strangers who will surely be warm friends. They will be in Malaysia for about a week.

Said a Singapore Red Cross spokesman Lim Thean Poh: "This is the time to demonstrate our friendship. What happens thereafter depends on whether they still need our assistance. If so, we will do whatever we can within the resources we've got here. But I am sure this is not the first and last of everything. In fact, it is a long journey in our bilateral relationship with the Malaysian Red Crescent Johor Baru branch."


Not a single mention was reported in the Malaysian press about this - the nation's voice.


Are we that stuck-up that we can't even voice a grateful thank you?

Tsk, tsk, tsk... Masa banjir pun nak main politik. Kena jaga muka kot. Begitu penting ke?

Acting before God Acts

It hurts to see the devastation of the floods in the southern peninsular. The rain, when too much of a beautiful thing, has a price. It was, no doubt, an Act of God for the most part.

For the most part.

Still, hard questions need to be asked and reference points sought to understand the nature - or nurture - of this aqueous beast. The hardest question is perhaps "Did we ask for it?"

In our country, heavy rains fell in Johor, Melaka, Pahang and Negeri Sembilan. Of the 31 monitoring stations in Johor, the highest was recorded in Johor Baru, which recorded 289mm of rainfall in a 24-hour period on Tuesday (Dec19).


JB sits sister-adjacent to Singapore, divided by the Tebrau Straits. Because of its geographic proximity, it's certain the rains fell hard there too. Very hard actually. It recorded the third highest rainfall in 75 years - being pummelled by 366mm of rain in the same 24-hour period. That's 3 inches more than JB's recording.

There were massive traffice jams, a landslide and fallen trees. There was chest-high flooding at a lower-level strip of nurseries at Thompson Rd nearby MacRitichie Reservoir.

At the end of the day, the hard fact is this - civilian casualties: Zero. Not a single person was evacuated even though Singapore has its share of landed property, subterranean MRT lines, and basement carparks. The drains channeled the water out safely. Electricity supply continued uninterupted, ditto water supply. Car owners moaned about repair bills, nursery owners were hit by lost business, but all in, it was a very uncomfortable, very wet few days. And that was that.

On our side of the Causeway, the number of displaced inhabitants has now passed 80,000 individuals. Seven lives have been lost; seven lives too many.

True, it was an Act of God. But some things cause pause for ponder. When two scenarios are examined side by side given similar conditions, lessons bubble to the surface.


Consider this: Segamat is an inland town, about 50km from the Straits of Melaka, and averages about 60 feet above sea level. The Sungai Segamat runs through the town on its meandering way to Muar. It runs down an incline. There isn't a reservoir upstream which could have overflowed. And yet, it was the worst-hit town. What really caused the floods? A beaver dam?

Even more curious: What magic spell protected the more exposed and water-ringed Singapore from being wreaked by the very same rains? Was it fengshui? Vashtu sastra? A Temasik bomoh?

Or was it just plain foresight, planning and implementation? That every tax-payer's dollar spent, be it drainage, transportation lines or schools must count and be put to optimum effect? In short, integrity counts. And having the right people doing the right job.

Singapore knew God would act and worked at it.

Did we?


Photo credits:
JB flood: NST
Singapore flood: Channel News Asia
Segamat satelite image: Google Earth

Inspiring quotes to end the year

"As information minister, I am part of history - I have seen it and understood it - thus I cannot have made a mistake or misunderstood history."

"As for me, only those who feel they are communists would be offended by what I had said."

- Zam
on insisting that a communist monument had been erected in Nilai Memorial Park and in Sarawak. Negeri Sembilan MB Mohamad Hasan has joined in the call. He's asking the privately-owned cemetery to demolish the monument. It is a monument commemorating those who fought against the Japanese invasion during WW II.

How does being "information minister" fuse with "part of history"?

How do you teach idiots logic?



My favourite yet for this week:


"I was in Turkey but did not see the boat."

- Sleepy Hollow,
on insisting that Turkish newspaper, Hurriyet, had printed lies about his stopover there with one Ananda Krishnan. PM AAB was enroute to Venezuela. Apparently they went fishing at Gokova, where AAB gushed about the beauty of the Aegean Sea. But the report's highlight was that Sleepy Hollow came by to see his boat which he ordered four months ago. It had a reported price tag of US$8 mil.

He's a forgiving man though. Despite his name and high office smeared back home because of this report, he's asking for only a correction to be carried.

There's still 10 days to the end of the year. Shall we get to hear more motivational lines?

Samy's heart of gold

Busy, purpose-driven week for Samy Vellu. In a life set by the throbbing beat of the tabla, he showed he fights for you and me, and just as much, the Indian community.

Just barely a day before he announced the Great Benevolent Toll Hikes, Samy was in the estates of Jasin announcing a plan to ensure Tamil schools were not neglected.

Who knows, months earlier, he must have strapped his bronze breastplate and made his case to the Cabinet. Ever the fighter, perhaps he thumped hard on the table, perhaps he eyeballed a kerised Hishamuddin and never blinked, perhaps he made them shudder simply with cold, hard facts about the plight of his people.

In any case, he won. MIC's Arjuna won. As he won for us a kind and soft toll increase. ("The cheapest toll in the world is in Malaysia.")

And so for Indian Malaysians there is cause for celebration; 34 vessels of knowledge located in seven states will be awarded a total of RM489,000 – for which to get “a new building or have existing structures repaired”.

The Star reports:

The schools involved are one in Selangor which received RM10,000, six in Johor (RM55,000), two in Penang (RM50,000), 11 in Pahang (RM95,000), four in Negri Sembilan (RM85,000), one in Malacca (RM10,000) and nine in Kedah (RM184,000).

Look closer now.

That's RM489 thousand. In a time when just about every government project/initiative mentioned carries the million – if not billion – ringgit tag, here we have paltry thousands. And to be shared among 34 schools. Heart of gold.

Just a sampling: The KL ferriswheel is going to cost RM30 mil. That crazy Melaka tower RM21 mil. The Tanjong Tokong development is slated to cost RM750 mil and give-me-time PM AAB is suddenly anxious and wants it fast-tracked. Mr Sleepy-Hollow also gave away ringgit hampers to the tune of RM600 mil to Umno constituencies.

As for the Tamil schools, do the math. That's an average of RM14,832 per school. Those 11 Tamil-medium schools in Pahang will share RM95,000, or about RM8,636 for each school. The man who claims to have tamed the toll concessionaires now gives the same love to his people. Not.

Samy-ji, you can't even do a paint job with that kind of money. You can't quite fix the drains or the sewer lines. You sure as hell can't fix respect.

See, Tamil-medium schools are mostly located in the plantations where under the banners of Golden Hope, Sime Darby and Guthrie, Indian estate settlements have existed virtually unchanged for decades. Their dwellings may be seasoned and charming, but in the nights their monsoon dreams are washed in paraquat.

Perhaps it is these families who earn RM400 a month, whose womenfolk are tasked to spray hazardous pesticides with only a soiled hanky over their mouth deserve only this much?

And how much is much? To look at it from another perspective: RM489,000 amounts to 305,625 cars (excludes lorries, buses, cabs) passing through the LDP under the new tax plan. With four different toll plazas in its 40km stretch, that's 76,406 cars per plaza. Let's dare venture – that's perhaps two days' takings tops?

Heart of gold, Samy. And they say, a Barisan Nasional alliance ensures all races are represented. They say it is through this integration is achieved.

I say it cleaves.