Pak Lah, You Are A Huge Disappointment

The Member of Parliament (MP) of Jasin, Mohd Said Yusof admits that he is the sole proprietor of the forwarding agency, Binyu Sof Enterprise, which transported the consignment of imported sawn timber seized by the Malacca Customs. This gives a new twist to the controversy surrounding the dramatic resignation of Datuk Shahrir Samad as the chairman of the Backbenchers' Club in the parliament of Malaysia. It all started as a story carried on the Malaysia's English dairy, The New Straits Times, reporting that a MP was interfering with the operations of the Customs Office by telling the Director of Customs to "close one eye". Seeing the opportunity, the Leader of Opposition, Lim Kit Siang of the Democratic Action Party (DAP), brought the matter to the Parliament and moved that the said report carried in the NST to be referred to the Rights and Previllages Committee. On normal day this story will usually end here, the National Front (BN) MPs will simply vote it out treating it as just another of the gimicks by the Opposition to attract attentions, and will not even be reported in the news. But not this time, because Datuk Shahrir saw the real issue and its moral seriousness and supported the motion. He urged his comrades to do the same. But the BN MPs did not vote with their clear conscience and opposed Lim's motion. In a fit, Datuk Shahrir resigned from his position as chairman of the Backbenchers' Club, and drew sharp criticism from his collegues, notablily the Minister in the Prime Minister's Department, Datuk Seri Nasri. The matter was widely reported in the media, now this time the BN MPs draws sharp criticism from the public, they cried, "why close only one, better close both eyes!". Malaysia Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi was out of the country at that time and everyone was waiting for him to return and sort this out. On his return, Datuk Badawi announced that all BN MPs should follow party rules a nd vote only for BN MP's motion! (Blindly huh?) This means Datuk Badawi who portrays himself as the champion of anti-corruption in Malaysia has given himself a tight slap on his own mouth. It means that he condorns the action of the BN MPs' action of blocking a motion to investigate corrupt practice of a MP. He is willing to sacrisfy the efforts to curb corruption in favour of political gains. MP of Jasin, Mohd Said Yusof declared, "I admit I'm a businessman, but what's wrong with a MP becoming a businessman?" Nothing wrong, absolutely nothing wrong YB. But using your position as a YB and start to ask enforcement officers to "close one eye" is defenitely wrong. If every YB starts to do the same, what will become of Malaysia?

Chairman Of Parliament Back Benchers Resigned

Datuk Sharir Samad, the chairman of the Backbenchers' Club in Malaysia Parliament, resigned. He did so after supporting the Opposition Leader, Lim Kiat Siang who moved to eradicate corruptions in Malaysia. But the back benchers did not follow his example, and voted against the motion instead. Datuk Sharir felt that he no longer command the respect of his fellow backbenchers and does not find any reason to stay as leader of the backbenchers club. He does not want to play the role of a rubber stamp in the Parliament, he wants all Members of Parliament to uphold their dignities and have own rights of decision. I tip my hat to a politician who lives up to his principals here.

Singapore Having Their General Election Soon

The nearest

(note I didn't use the word closest) neighbour of Malaysia, Singapore will be having their general election in a few days' time. This time the ruling party did not win the election on nomination day itself. Suprise, surprise! Actually, why should they bother to hold any election at all? The Singaporeans won't dare to elect any opposition candidate anyway. They are all conditioned to listen to the ruling party since the day they were born. Supposing any of the opposition candidates was elected, he will be quickly disqualified due to the fact that he being a bankrupt. How come? Don't you know that he will be sued by the leaders of the ruling party for libel because he criticised them during the election campaign. They will definitely win and the poor chap will have to declare himself bankrupt because he will never be able to pay for the ridiculously high damage amount awarded by the court. It happened before, just go and check the reords. Malaysian government has a powerful weapon against the opposition candidates - the "ISA", but Singaporean government has "ISA" and on top of that they have a much much more lethal weapon - "Sure Win Libel Suits".

Contracts Which Fail To Meet Deadline Will Be Terminated

Malaysia's Minister Of Works, Datuk Seri Samy Vellu, warned contractors in the country that they should not delay to commence works once the contracts are awarded to them. They also must meet the deadline as stipulated in the contracts. In the 9MP period, the Works Ministry of Malaysia will monitor all contracts awarded closely. Investigations will be carried out if any project is found to be falling behind schedules, stern warning will be given to the contractors concerned, and they will be given another chance to rectify the problems. If they still fail to meet the deadlines, the delayed contracts will be terminated and be reawarded to new contractors. If the new contract sum is higher than the original contract sum, the difference shall be borne by the original contractors. In the past, such a difference was borne by the government. Will this measure be effective? Yes and no. If the contracting companies only are held responsible for the delay, the owners of these companies will simply disband the companies and form new ones, then the above measures will be useless against them. On the other hand, if the owners of these companies themselves are held responsible, then they got no way to run, these measures will be effective....to certain extent at least. Any way, this post is not meant to criticise the Works Minister, but its main purpose is to record the words spoken by the Works Minister. We shall check back after a few years or months to see how much he has lived up to his words. I will do this more often in future, for all prominent people in Malaysia, so that we have a record to trace how fast and how often they change their faces and tunes.