Isn’t it both funny and laughable to read how the prime minister opted the cheap-skate method of doing their PR stunt? The sleepy former PM may have left us for good to enjoy his forever honey-moon period but I bet everyone can still recall how he took a ride on LRT in an attempt to score some political and PR points. Now you’ve the new PM who did the same thing and it would be foolish to think such a stunt would do him any good. The next question that comes to your mind – doesn’t the PM has a better PR team to rebuild his public approval rating? The fact remains that no matter how many times the PM took the ride on public transportation systems and how hard the government-controlled media spinned the story as if the PM was a superhero Superman, the people are simply too sick and tired of the silliness of the whole stunt.
People still remember how the PM (was deputy PM then) took the easy way out by telling the average-Joes to bite the bullet and change their lifestyle when the government increased the fuel hike not many moons ago. Frankly do you really need to show how silly you are by taking public transport just to conclude that the system sucks? Didn’t the new PM promised to deliver a better public transportation from billions of ringgit of savings resulting from the fuel hike back then? Stop beating around the bush and put the right people to study and improve the public transportation once and for all.
Sure, the new PM’s latest attempt to bring back the lost confidence in the business sector by abolishing the 30% bumiputra equity policy from 27 sub-sector were on the right path but why stop there? What’s holding back from abolishing the controversial and obsolete NEP (New Economic Policy)? Of course people are still wondering if this is another short-term political ploy as the present government is known for flip-flop in its policies. There’s no guarantee that one fine day they would suddenly reinstate the 30% bumiputra equity again and you can’t do a single damn thing about it, not with the judicial pillar totally under executive’s control.
It’s too early to say if the new administration’s intention is genuine but besides giving away the carrot in the form of increasing foreign ownership, the government should probably look into the cancerous corruption at its backyard. You can only do so much for so long by sweeping all the corruptions accusations under the carpet. And why did the Transport Minister Ong Tee Keat suddenly burst into anger that TheEdge Weekly published the infamous PKFZ (Port Klang Free Zone) scandal revealing that the cost has just ballooned to RM8 billion from its original RM2.3 billion. People were puzzling why a person (Ong Tee Keat) who was seen as a clean politician is trying to prolong the release of the audit findings by independent auditors PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) on the scandal.
Like it or not the perception is that the PKFZ scandal was tainted with corruption from the very beginning – from former MCA President Ling Liong Sik to Ong’s predecessor Chan Kong Choy. Ong may have thought that the PKFZ was quite a straight-forward project without much hanky-panky elements and hence his big promise to reveal all but soon after he became the President of MCA he began to realize how huge the scandal is. He must be kicking himself for opened his big mouth with the promise to tell all about the PKFZ scandal. And since Ong Tee Keat refused to acknowledge or deny that the scandal is now costing RM8 billion, people would think what was reported by TheEdge is correct. Unless Ong is serious about suing the weekly publisher the MCA President would be seen as tainted as well. It seems Ong is buying time hoping the PKFZ could attract more investment and as such could neutralize the irregularities in the scandal.
Other Articles That May Interest You …
- In time of Cheap Lobster, Peoples Money are Robbed
- Hooray! Another Fuel Reduction but it’s a Little Too Late
- Watch out BN, you don’t want to wake up Dirty Harry
- No further fuel hike for 2008 yet nobody rejoicing?
- Fuel Price Hike of 90 cents to RM2.82 a liter next year?
- Oil price hike – Badawi’s greatest Economic Challenge
- Malaysia’s Biggest Scandal – Business as Usual
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April 27th, 2009 by financetwitter
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Comments
Good Morning En Stocktube
Thanks for reading my mind – i ran out of words to describe how @*#&$^% that was. I'm of those unfortunate lots who rely on public transport heavily. They suck big time but we are strong enough to go through that every single day. So, if he think taking lrt trip of less than 10 minutes – not during peak time mind you – dont lie to us that you are 'pemimpin berjiwa rakyat'. ish ish ish…
En Stocktube, have a fruitful day ahead! Cheerio!
“There’s no guarantee that one fine day they would suddenly reinstate the 30% bumiputra equity again and you can’t do a single damn thing about it, not with the judicial pillar totally under executive’s control.”
should read
“There’s a guarantee that one fine day they would suddenly reinstate the 30% bumiputra equity again and you can’t do a single damn thing about it, not with the judicial pillar totally under executive’s control.”
The abolishment of 30% is just a temporary measures in bad times. No point owning 30% in companies during financial crisis as there is no profit to be shared but only losses. Let others bear the burden of loss but when times are good they will come back for the 30%.
Najib PR stunt is as artificial as the hollywood action stunt. The only difference is that he didn’t use a stunt double. But then what so dangerous about taking the LRT? By the way, Najib looks like he’s following the old script of UMNO lame PR agenda? Doesn’t he have anything new? Are they so set in their ways that they are incapable of change? Oooops…sorry ..Forgot that we are talking about UMNO leaders. A dinosaur in a modern age is doomed to extinction. It doesn’t matter that they know they are doomed, they just can’t change nor can they change. Malaysia is no longer their natural habitat. It’s the only one case I’m happy that malaysian people is causing a species extinction….Actually the environment will be so much better with these terrible species gone. Just can’t wait for another KT event on the next PRU.
hello fi-sha,
yeah, i still remember & miss those time when the pink lady bus mini rule the road … now they're gone and come to think of it, they (mini bus) are quite efficient though *grin* …
cheers …
They umno/bn are clever & we the beloved rakyat of Malaysia is stupid.