Eurocopter answers PAC must give in its report

I thank Datuk  Seri Azmi Khalid for committing a grave parliamentary impropriety yesterday in compromising  his position  as the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) Chairman and trying to hit out at me in Parliament for my earlier criticisms of him in mishandling the PAC inquiry into the RM1.6 billion Eurocopter helicopter deal, resulting in our joint appearance before the media at yesterday’s lunch-break.

This has refocused parliamentary and national attention on the RM1.6 billion Cougar EC725 Eurocopter deal and the PAC inquiry, which I had described as the most important and high-profile PAC inquiry in the 51-year history of Malaysian Parliament.

Azmi gave a public undertaking yesterday that the PAC report into the Eurocopter inquiry would be ready to be tabled in two or three days.

I therefore expect the PAC report on its inquiry into  the Eurocopter ideal to be tabled in Parliament by next Monday or Azmi should explain why he has broken his solemn undertaking both inside and outside the House.

I have no personal quarrel with Azmi as all I wanted is a PAC which is capable of discharging its mandate to be an effective parliamentary watchdog on government misappropriation and abuses of public funds.

I have always taken the position that centuries of parliamentary experience world-wide have demonstrated that a PAC chaired by a government MP – what more, if chaired by a former Minister who had just stepped down from the Cabinet – will not be able to play the role of an  effective and efficient parliamentary watchdog.

The PAC inquiry into the RM1.6 billion Eurocopter deal will be a test whether my reservations about Azmi as PAC Chairman is well-founded, although I have no personal animus towards him.

In fact, I am prepared to offer all possible help to the PAC to ensure that it conducts a thorough and satisfactory inquiry, and this is why I had made numerous proposals and suggestions about the proper  terms of reference of the PAC inquiry in my dozen statements on the issue, both in and out of Parliament.

If the PAC inquiry had not been as comprehensive and wide-ranging as it should be to enable the production of a satisfactory report, Azmi should reconvene PAC meetings to get  answers to  many questions which MPs and Malaysians expect to find in the PAC finding  on the Eurocopter deal.

To assist the PAC Chairman, let me summarise some of the answers which the PAC report should furnish, viz:

1.	The very grave issues about propriety, accountability and professionalism in the decision-making process, whether at the technical, off-set or price stages, especially when it is now established that the government had not conducted physical and specification inspections of the three short-listed aircrafts – the Cougar EC725, Sikorsky S92 and AgustaWestlands AW101.

2.	Why is Malaysia paying about twice the price for the EC 725 helicopters as compared to Brazil?

3.	Are  Nuris “flying coffins”? If not, why not just upgrade them for a few hundred million ringgit, a small fraction of the cost as compared to the billion-ringgit purchase of Cougar EC725 Eurocopters, which are 40-year-old Cougars in any event? Is it true that (i) 85% of the RMAF Nuri crashes were due to human error, 10 % enemy aggression and another 5 % only maybe technical; and (ii) the Nuris are still “good for another 20 years and more”, having “very low airframe hours, with an average of 9000 hours per aircraft” as compared to “worldwide standard for this type of helicopter currently is more than 50,000 hours and some even reaching 60,000 hours”.

4.	Is there a middleman involved in the Eurocopter deal, the identity and the commissions involved, whether paid by the government or Eurocopter.

5.	Has  the PAC secured firm undertaking from the Defence Ministry that when the government finally decides to purchase the helicopters, there would be a new open tender for the helicopters in view of the procedural abuses in the Eurocopter deal?

I had also proposed that the PAC should invite representatives from all the aircraft manufactures who had submitted bids for the helicopter tender to appear to help the PAC in its inquiry.

I had right from the beginning stressed  that the PAC must have independent and professional advice from people knowledgeable and have working experience in the aviation industry, especially those who know about helicopter operations and the history of Nuri/RMAF such as  experienced helicopter pilots or ex-pilots, particularly to enable the PAC to ascertain whether Nuris are “flying coffins”.

What has the PAC done to ensure that it is not totally dependent on the one-sided submissions of the Defence Ministry and RMAF?

                This entry was posted on Wednesday, 12 November 2008, 10:41 am and is filed under
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Is Telekom Malaysia trying to kill REDtone?

The Second Finance Minister, Datuk Nor Mohd Yakcop gave a most unsatisfactory reply in Parliament yesterday to the mountain of questions by MPs, mostly from Pakatan Rakyat, about the award of the RM11.3 billion High Speed Broadband (HSBB) monopoly to Telekom Malaysia, together with a RM2.4 billion subsidy with taxpayers’ money.

I stood up during thd 2009 Budget debate on the Finance Ministry to ask whether the government is prepared to review its award of the HSBB project to Telekom Malaysia or to allow the building of   another HSBB network  as there is an offer by another company to do so without a single sen of subsidy in order to promote broadband liberalization and enhance competition.

To this question and those by other MPs on the rationale of  awarding the HSBB to Telekom which will encourage Telekom monopoly and discourage broadband liberalisation, Nor Mohd gave an ambivalent reply saying that the government was prepared to review the HSBB project if necessary – which means nothing at all.

Either the government is reviewing the HSBB project awarded to Telekom towards calling for a proper tender to be called or it is not reviewing at all!

The arguments for and against the RM11.3 billion HSBB award to Telekom Malaysia and the government subsidy of RM2.4 billion  had been canvassed in Parliament during the winding-up  by  the Energy, Water and Communications Minister Dato Shaziman bin Abu Mansor in the 2009 Budget policy debate on November 3, 2008.

All the questions and issues which I had posed on Nov. 3 remain unanswered, whether by Shaziman at the time or by Nor Mohd yesterday, despite the latter’s promise to have “a review if necessary” but no commitment of any review!

Finally, we were back to square one when Nor Mohd said he would revert back to the Energy, Water and Communications Minister on the issue!

I maintain what I said on Nov. 3 and yesterday in Parliament – that  Telekom Malaysia  must bear the greatest responsibility for Malaysia’s failure to become a broadband power, left far behind in the past decade by other countries when Malaysia had started on an equal broadband footing with them.

South Korea has now a broadband penetration rate of 93 per cent and Hong Kong at 30 per cent, as compared to Malaysia’s 17 per cent which includes Malaysia’s most extraordinary “low broadband speed”!

I had said on Nov. 3 that Telekom Malaysia had acted as an absolute bully in refusing to open up the last mile copper to allow other industry players to buy the “last mile” at a fair price and thus promote a full liberalisation of the telco industry.

This monopoly has not only allowed Telekom Malaysia to have a stranglehold on the other industry players, it has been most costly to the country in terms of lost GDP in tens of billion of ringgit in the past decade, business competitiveness as well as more efficient public service delivery.

I had even asked whether it was true that Telekom Malaysia was trying to “kill” REDtone because the latter was too aggressive.

View the Minister’s reply and exchange at the video here of the parliamentary debate of Nov. 3, 2008.

                This entry was posted on Wednesday, 12 November 2008, 2:56 pm and is filed under
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Azalina – honour your promise and table in Parliament PriceWaterhouse report on Pempena scandals

This is to remind the Tourism Minister,  Datuk Azalina Othman that it is more than a week since her promise in Parliament to table the PriceWaterhouse report on the various financial scandals of Tourism Ministry’s subsidiary, Pempena Sdn. Bhd.

When replying to me  in Parliament on Monday, 3rd November on the 2009 Budget, Azalina said that PriceWaterhouse report into the financial scandals of Pempena would only be ready two days later on Wednesday, and I specifically reminded her at the time to keep her undertaking to present the PriceWaterhouse report in Parliament.

In fact, when she was further questioned on the PriceWaterhouse report, the Deputy Speaker, Datuk Wan Junaidi Tuanku Jaafar, who was in the chair at the time, came to her rescue, urging MPs to “bersabar tunggu hari Rabu”…”hingga laporan selesai”.

In my speech on the 2009 budget on October 15, I had referred to the Oct. 13, 2008 expose by the Sun in the report “
Over the limit…PSD ALLOWS MINISTER ONLY EIGHT STAFF, BUT 20 ON TOURISM MINISTRY’S PAYROLL
”, calling in Parliament for a full explanation for the serious allegation that the tourism minister’s office “has excess baggage”, being overstaffed  as “the appointment of some 20 staff breaches the Public Services Department (PSD)’s regulations limiting the appointments to only eight” and that “it defies a Treasury circular on cost-cutting and austerity”.

The Tourism Minister had in fact three special officers, five political officers, one research officer, six information technology (IT) officers and given support staff. As only the PSD can approve the new appointments, the guidelines were circumvented by getting Tourism Ministry subsidiary Pempena Sdn. Bhd and its affiliates Malaysian Travel Business Travel Sdn. Bhd and SD Corp Communication Sdn. Bhd to pay their salary.

One such appointment is Datin Paduka Chew Mei Fun, who is the executive director of Pempena and paid RM10,000 and is provided with a car and driver.

I also raised the financial scandals in the various Tourism Ministry projects including the RM30 million for Malaysia Kitchen and  RM10 million for E-Tourism Portal. Another scandal is the Pempena Teksi Service (Pets) which has lost millions of ringgit.

In her reply, Azalina admitted that all was not well with the ministry’s various projects and subiidaries especially, Pempena resulting in serious allegations of graft and criminal breach of trust  against senior officials in Pempena.

She said that this was why PriceWaterhouse had been asked to conduct an audit report.

Azalina has asked MPs to be patient until the PriceWaterhouse report is officially handed to her last Wednesday. When is she going to keep her promise to table the PriceWaterhouse report into Pempena financial scandals in Parliament?

                This entry was posted on Thursday, 13 November 2008, 12:04 pm and is filed under
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DNA Identification Bill – motion to refer it to Select Committee on Dec. 8

I will propose on December 8, when Parliament resumes debate on government bills after passing the 2009 Budget, a motion to refer the DNA Identification Bill – given second-reading passage on August 28 – to an all-party Select Committee to draft adequate safeguards to prevent police abuses and to protect human rights, in particular the right to privacy of Malaysians.

The country needs a DNA law  to nab the guilty in crime and exonerate the innocent and there should be a healthy national debate on  how Malaysia can have the best and most efficient DNA legislation in the world from the perspectives of  science, criminology and human rights, learning the experience of other countries with DNA laws.

In Malaysia, however, public debate on the DNA Identification Bill has been overshadowed by grave concerns that it could be used as an instrument of political victimization and repression.

As Malaysia is suffering from  an acute multiple crisis of confidence in key institutions of governance (never before in the nation’s history have police reports been lodged against the Attorney-General, the Inspector-General of Police and very soon the Chief Justice), it is beholden on the government to ensure that the DNA Identification Bill can secure the support of all sectors of society and not become a controversial subject of distrust and division among Malaysians.

This can be achieved if the DNA Identification Bill is the result of a fully consultative process involving all political parties and all sectors of society.

This is why the DNA Bill, after its second reading, should be referred to an all-party Parliamentary Select Committee to graft adequate safeguards to prevent police abuses and protect the human rights of Malaysians, particularly the right to privacy.

The DNA Identification Bill is a sloppily drafted bill (in one instance referring to a proposed section that does not exist) which has failed to take into consideration the important principles of efficiency, accountability, transparency, good governance, human rights and the rule of law.

At a time when public confidence in the police is at an all-time low, (aggravated by the continued police objection to the establishment of an Independent Police Complaints and Misconduct  Commission – IPCMC – as proposed by the Royal Police Commission to create an efficient, incorruptible, professional world-class police service), what justification is there for proposals  that stipulate that both the head and deputy head of the DNB Databank must be police officers, giving the police the power to “use all means necessary” to compulsorily take non-intimate DNA samples, with the information from the DNA Databank “conclusive proof” and not challengeable in any court of law.

Something is very wrong if the Barisan Nasional government is not prepared to do anything to ensure that the DNA Identification Bill ceases to be a controversial and divisive piece of legislation but can have adequate safeguards to answer all legitimate concerns and reservations.

For this reason, I hope that both the Cabinet and BN MPs would rise above party politics and support the reference of the DNA Identification Bill to a Select Committee to come out with an acceptable DNA legislation, as well as an accompanying Data Protection Bill which I had been asking in Parliament in the past two decades.

Speech by DAP Parliamentary Leader and MP for Ipoh Timor Lim Kit Siang at the DAPSY Public Forum on “DNA Identification Bill – Are We Ready” at the Kuala Lumpur-Selangor Chinese Assembly Hall on Wednesday, 12th November 2008 at 9 pm

                This entry was posted on Thursday, 13 November 2008, 1:16 pm and is filed under
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Police – back off, be neutral and stop being catspaw to Umno leaders

Why was DAP Selangor State Executive councillor, Ronnie Liu arrested in so rough and  high-handed a manner just before the Selangor State Exco meeting yesterday at the Selangor State Secretariat in Shah Alam?

One would have thought that Ronnie had become a dangerous criminal or had been guilty of some capital crime from the police operation, refusing to allow Ronnie to attend the Selangor State Exco meeting although he promised to surrender himself at the Puchong police station later.

In the event, Ronnie was in the Puchong police station for about 15 minutes when his brother came to post RM2,000 bail – to be charged at the Petaling Jaya magistrate’s court on Monday.

What was Ronnie’s crime?  For allegedly obstructing a Subang Jaya Municipal Council (MPSJ) officer from carrying out his duty. When? Nov. 2 last year.

Is this the latest case of malicious prosecution?

Without going into the merits or demerits of the charge, one is entitled to ask why  the police took  more than a  year to decide whether to arrest and charge Ronnie or not on such a simple and straightforward matter?

Is the police action against Ronnie related to the campaign of the former Selangor Mentri Besar Dr. Mohd Khir Toyo for Umno Youth chief election?

This is a very normal question that is being asked.

Was this Umno-linkage another reason why the DAP Selangor Senior State Exco and MP for Seputeh, Teresa Kok, fell victim to a  Internal Security Act (ISA) “sting” operation resulting in her being detained for seven days in September?

The Police should  back off, be neutral and stop being catspaw to Umno leaders in their high-stake pursuit for power, positionn and money in the current Umno party elections.

Or was Ronnie’s arrest yesterday a reprisal by the Selangor Police Officer for the avalanche of public criticisms for his high-handed arrest of peaceful participants (including three DAP elected representatives, Tony Pua (MP – PJ Utara), Lau Weng San (ADUN – Kampong Tunku) and Ronnie) at Sunday’s candlelight vigil for justice, freedom, democracy as well as for free, fair and clean general election?

Public respect for the police have fallen to a new low with the high-handed arrest of Ronnie yesterday as the instant reaction in Selangor and the country is how ordinary Malaysians can expect respect and fair play from the police when even a state exco member could be treated in so rough and high-handed a manner?

                This entry was posted on Thursday, 13 November 2008, 2:50 pm and is filed under
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Hamid – when are you going to assume personal responsibility for rampant crime?

The Selangor Chief Police Officer, Deputy Comm Datuk Khalid Abu Bakar should apologise to Ronnie Liu for the unprecedentedly ill-mannered, rough and high-handed police arrest of the Selangor state exco at the Selangor state secretariat on Wednesday,  just in time to  prevent him from  attending the weekly state exco meeting as if he posed instant and major threat to national security and public law and order.

The Police has to date failed to give any  credible reason why the arrest should be effected in so rude and crude a manner, when the police should know that Ronnie was not about to be a fugitive from justice and from his past record, would have fully co-operated with the police in his own arrest.

I am not here disputing Ronnie’s arrest – putting aside for the moment the merits and demerits of the charge pending against him – but the manner of the arrest of a State Exco, raising the question asked by Malaysians not only in Selangor but throughout the country that if the police could be so highhanded and ill-mannered when dealing with a Selangor State Exco, how could the ordinary man and woman in the street  expect good manners and courtesy from the Police in their everyday interactions?

Ronnie is to be charged on Monday under Section 186 of the Penal Code for  the offence of obstructing a public servant in the discharge of his functions, which is punishable on conviction to a two-year jail sentence, RM10,000 fine or both.

If the two accused in the C4 murder of Mongolian woman Altantuya Shaariibuu, Chief Inspector Azilah Hadri and Corporal Sirul Azhar Umar (both members of the Special Action Unit, UTK) could be treated with the extraordinary and  unprecedented kindness of covering their faces using the “ninja” mask throughout the murder trial which have  lasted over 150 days, can the Selangor CPO explain why the police is incapable of the most minimal considerations of courtesy and good manners when arresting Ronnie?

Is this why the Police has abandoned the earlier  “mesra” slogan, to the extent that the entire police motto   of  “Mesra, Cepat dan Betul” had been dropped?

Khalid  has also  failed to explain why it has taken a full year to charge and arrest Ronnie for an alleged offence over a very straightforward matter for which a police report was lodged in November last year.

Let him come clean and give the relevant dates, when the Police investigations were completed, when the investigation papers were forwarded to the Deputy Public Prosecutor’s office for action, when the DPP decided that Ronnie be arrested and charged and when the police received such instruction from the DPP!

If there is an Independent Police Complaints and Misconduct Commission (IPCMC), all these information would have to be disclosed when a formal complaint is lodged with the commission.

Is this why the police are so dead set against an IPCMC from being set up to deal with police abuses of power, for the police would have nowhere to hide their abuses, wrongs and mistakes?

I regret the unthinking intervention of the Home Minister, Datuk Syed Hamid Albar who criticized me at the Parliament lobby yesterday following  my media conference deploring the manner of Ronnie’s arrest.

He said:

“Beliau sentiasa mengkritik kerajaan apabila pemimpin DAP dan ahli parti ditahan polis termasuk menghalang tugas penguatkuasa.

“Perrnahkah dia cakap perkara baik mengenai polis. Jadi dia mesti menjadi lebih rasional. Kita dapat lihat setiap tindakannya didorong oleh politik,” katanya. (
Utusan Malaysia
)

Just to prove Hamid wrong that I had never praised the police, let me refer him  to my media statement of
March 2, 2006
where  I gave “the highest praise” to the then  Inspector-General of Police Tan Sri  Mohd Bakri Musa for his speech opening a three-day course for OCPDs at the Royal Malaysian Police College in Cheras a day earlier.

I said Bakri’s speech was a “most positive sign in the past 10 months that the police leadership is  not totally resistant to public aspirations for police reform to become a world-class service and that the  Royal Police Commission recommendations will not be  a complete waste of time and resources”.

I had never been sparing in criticism of “black sheep”  in leadership positions in the public service, whether in Police or any other branches of the government but my public record on looking after the welfare of the police personnel, whether in Parliament or outside, is an open book.

I had not only supported, but constantly  put pressure on the government to improve the welfare,  remuneration and working conditions of the police force so that Malaysia has an efficient, dedicated, contented  and professional force to make Malaysia safe and secure for its citizens, visitors and investors.

In the current meeting of Parliament, for instance, I had criticized Inspector-General of Police Tan Sri Musa Hassan for supporting the RM20 billion proposal  to rent 34 helicopters for the police for the next  30 years as the money can be better spent on the police rank-and-file to improve their welfare and remuneration.

Let me ask  Hamid  when he is going to assume personal responsibility as the Home Minister for the daily deterioration of public security situation in the crime, and restore to all Malaysians their fundamental right to be free from crime and the fear of crime?

This week alone, there had been a spate of major crimes like a petrol kiosk cashier hacked to death by robbers in Ipoh, the murder of a salesman found burnt inside his car showroom in Penang and another  Mat Rempit mob attack on five people in a car in Jalan Loke Yew, Kuala Lumpur until they lost consciousness.

As Home Minister, Hamid should direct the police to return to the basics to end their misallocation of priorities by maintaining as their topmost priority the fight against crime and to reduce crime instead of deploying limited police personnel and  resources to harass and victimize responsible and law-abiding   Malaysians, including senior citizens, who want just to exercise their democratic right to  express their concerns about justice, freedom and democracy in Malaysia through peaceful gatherings or candlelight vigils.

Hamid should tell the police to keep an eye but to “stay off” from these peaceful gatherings, which are always peaceful and full of goodwill and camaraderie until the spell is broke  by high-handed police provocations!

                This entry was posted on Friday, 14 November 2008, 1:10 pm and is filed under
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“Bastard in the House” (2) – “Spoilt brats” running BNBBC

The latest tantrum by the
Chairman
 and
Deputy Chairman
of the  Barisan Nasional Backbenchers  Club (BNBBC) breathing fire and brimstone against the formation of the Parliamentary Caucus on the Integrity and Independence of the Judiciary is most unseemly but typically characteristic of the BNBBC since it was taken over by leaders who had conducted themselves not very different from “spoilt brats”.

In the previous Parliament, when the BNBBC was helmed by Datuk Shahrir Samad (now Domestic Trade and Consumer Affairs Minister), there was class, quality and a palpable commitment to parliamentary integrity, excellence and professionalism but which got Shahrir into trouble when he stood up in Parliament to support my motion to refer a Barisan Nasional MP to the Committee of Privileges over the “One-Eye Closed” episode.

Even when the BNBBC was subsequently taken over by the then Larut MP, Dato’ Raja Ahmad Zainuddin bin Raja Haji Omar (who is now back as Perak State Assemblyman), utmost efforts were made by the BNBBC to maintain parliamentary standards.

All these commendable benchmarks went down the drain in the present Parliament after the March 8 “political tsunami”, when a new BNBBC leadership took over and nobody has done more than the present BNBBC Chairman and Deputy Chairman to bring shame, dishonour and disrepute to Parliament.

The greatest “achievement” and scandal of this BNBBC leadership is its Taiwain “agricultural study tour” for BN MPs to foil a “916 sky-change” – but no BNBBC official could answer my simple question during the 2009 Budget debate on October 15 what lessons they have learnt from their Taiwan trip to explain why Taiwan, which was poorer and more backward than Malaya when we achieved independence in 1957, had shot forward to become a more advanced and richer country while Malaysia had been losing out to one country after another in the past half-century, whether  to Taiwan, Singapore, Hong Kong or South Korea, and is in danger of losing out to even more countries like Thailand, Vietnam and even Indonesia?

The
negative, irresponsible and even “anarchist” mindset and mentality of the BNBBC Chairman and Deputy Chairman
 are again illustrated by their
“spoilt-sport” reaction
 to the establishment of the Parliamentary Caucus on the Independence and Integrity of the Judiciary yesterday.

Malaysians can be excused for thinking that these two BNBBC leaders live in another world when they act and talk as if they are woefully unaware that the issues of the
independence and integrity of the judiciary
 have been among the
burning concerns of thinking and patriotic Malaysians for the past two decades
.

At least, the Abdullah administration is ahead of the dinosaurian BNBBC leadership on this issue, which was why the Prime Minister Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi in his written reply in Parliament on Wednesday spoke about his seriousness in wanting to undertake judicial reforms before he steps down from office in March next year.

But clearly, he has not been able yet to “educate” the BNBBC, or at least its Chairman and Deputy Chairman, on the critical importance of restoring national and international confidence in the independence, impartiality and integrity of the judiciary, or they would not be throwing tantrums over the formation of the Parliamentary Caucus on the Independence and Integrity of the Judiciary.

Both of them claim that they did not know about the caucus meeting until after the event during lunchtime yesterday.

Their complaints only exposed their lack of seriousness as Parliamentarians let alone as “leaders” of BN MPs – for they don’t even read the papers placed on their table in Parliament. Furthermore, they do not follow the latest developments particularly in Parliament, or they could not possibly miss out on the media conference announcement by the Parliamentary Opposition Leader, Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim on the meeting to form the parliamentary caucus.

BN MPs are welcome to fully participate in the Parliamentary Caucus on the Independence and Integrity of the Judiciary as the protection and promotion of judicial independence and integrity s must be the responsibility of all MPs and not just Pakatan Rakyat MPs.

It is not for me to say that the cause of BN MPs as well as Malaysian Parliament as a whole would be better served if there are more mature, responsible and knowledgeable BN MPs to helm the BNBBC.

There had not been a single bleat from either the BNBBC Chairman or Deputy Chairman to one of the most disgraceful parliamentary episodes in the past nine days – when the BN MP for Pasir Salak Datuk Tajuddin Abdul Rahman used with impunity the terms “bastard” and “bloody bastard” in Parliament against DAP MP for Ipoh Barat M. Kulasegaran on November 5.

Right-thinking Ministers, MPs and Malaysians were outraged and horrified, except the BNBBC Chairman and Deputy Chairman! They seem to be very at home at such sacrilege of parliamentary sanctity, decorum and privilege.

Just
google “Tajuddin bastard” on the google blogsearch
, there will be 123 returns to show how the blogosphere had been outraged by the completely unacceptable unparliamentary conduct of Tajuddin!

It will do the BNBBC Chairman and Deputy Chairman, as well as Tajuddin, a lot of good to read these 123 comments and blogs provoked by the shocking “Bastard in the House” episode sparked off by Tajuddin as all three have a lot to learn from Malaysian bloggers.

                This entry was posted on Friday, 14 November 2008, 10:51 am and is filed under
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Kedah 50% bumiputra housing controversy being resolved

The controversy of 50% bumiputra housing quota in Kedah is being resolved.

I raised this issue at the Pakatan Rakyat Leadership Council in Parliament on Tuesday and I am given to understand that there is no change from the previous position on bumiputra housing quota in the state.

Hopefully, this matter can be clarified and set to rest without further prolongation of the controversy.

If necessary, I am prepared to make a visit to meet the Kedah Mentri Besar Datuk Seri Azizan Abdul Razak in Alor Setar over the matter.

Add new tag
,
housing

                This entry was posted on Friday, 14 November 2008, 1:43 pm and is filed under
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Note to A Malaysian Obama

by
M. Bakri Musa

On Tuesday November 4th, 2008, America became, in the words of comedian Jon Stewart, more of a “show” nation and less of a “tell” one.  In electing Barack Obama, America shows the world that it is now closer to being that “more perfect Union,” to quote the preamble to its constitution.  Nations are like people; it matters not where you have been, more important is where you are headed.

            In his victory speech Obama cited 106-year old Ann Dixon Cooper from the South who recalls only too well the time when women and blacks were not allowed to vote.  The fate of blacks was worse.  In his stirring speech Obama challenged Americans to imagine their nation a century hence; what his young daughters would experience should they be lucky enough to live as long as Ms. Cooper.  Would they too see comparable progress as that witnessed by her?

            Obama’s victory captured the world’s imagination, especially in Kenya where his father was born, and also in Malaysia, but for a far different reason.  I had intimation of this when on meeting Malaysian students in New York the weekend before the elections I was asked whether Malaysia is ready for her own Barack Obama.  Before replying, I countered with a question of my own:  Is there a Malaysian Obama, or more specifically, is Malaysia capable of producing one?

Labeling Barack Obama

Obama is the product of a white mother and a black father.  To be sure, they were no ordinary parents; both had PhDs, with his father’s from Harvard.  Obama however was brought up for the most part by his maternal grandparents, a solid Middle America couple from Kansas.

            In achievements, Barack followed the trajectory more typical of an ambitious white middle class family:  exclusive “prep” school and an Ivy League education.  While Obama could throw a mean basketball hoop, his climb to the top was through academics, not athletics or music.  Stated differently, Obama’s path to success hews closer to a Kennedy than a Kareem Abdul Jabbar.  Obama adopted the faith of his mother and grandparents, not of his Muslim father or stepfather, which is a minority albeit a fast-growing faith in America.

            In his speeches, from the imageries and metaphors he uses down to his accent and delivery, Obama is more Jack Kennedy than Jesse Jackson, more Cambridge, Massachusetts than Southside Chicago.  Obama’s favorite expression is, “My fellow Americans!” not, “Yo! Brother!”  Obama favors conservative dark suits and well trimmed look, not brash-colored Afro suits and daring hairdo.

            Culturally at least, Obama is more white than black.  Indeed, during the early part of his political campaign, he had to fight hard the widely-held perception in the black community that he “ain’t black enough.”

            Yet to the dominant American society, Obama is labeled black, not white.  The reason is obvious; he carries the physical features of a black, including or especially his skin color.  During the intense campaign there were concerted efforts to paint him as being “not one of us.”  This would have happened even if he were a conservative with a waspish name like Alan Lee Keyes and not a foreign one like Barack Hussein Obama.

            In particular, Obama had to constantly deny that he was a Muslim.  It is doubtful that Obama would have secured his party’s nomination, let alone the election, had he been a Muslim.  This does not mean that America is anti-Muslim rather that it is not quite yet ready to accept someone from a minority faith to be in the White House.  A generation ago America had difficulty digesting the fact that a Catholic would be president.  This recent election season also saw during the Republican primaries misgivings about Mitt Romney’s Mormon faith.

            The path to “a more perfect Union,” while steady, is slow.

            Contrast that to Malaysia.  There are many children of Malay-Caucasian as well as Malay-Chinese and Malay-Indian marriages exhibiting very “un-Malay” features.  Yet Malay culture has been very welcoming of them, unhesitatingly embracing them as Malays.  This is not a recent phenomenon.  I had many childhood friends and classmates who had distinctly Chinese or Indian appearances because of adoption or mixed marriages, yet they were all considered and treated as Malays.

            Why the children of mixed marriages between a member of the majority and a minority are not regarded as the majority in America, but they are in Malaysia, is an observation worth pondering.  I am certain this is related to an underlying obsession with “racial purity.”

            On this point, as a Malay I am heartened that my culture is very welcoming of those who are adopted, from mixed marriages, and do not look like us, whatever that presumed “Malay appearance” might be.  We are, thankfully, not consumed with maintaining our “purity.”

            My view is that Malaysia already has her Barack Obama in the person of Mahathir Muhamad.  We do not recognize him as such because unlike in America where its Obama is considered a member of the minority, Malaysia’s majority Malays warmly and quickly embrace their Obama as one of their own.  Nor is Mahathir alone; earlier leaders like Datuk Onn and Tunku Abdul Rahman also had mixed ancestry.

            By biological heritage, Obama has equal claim to being black or white.  Yet because of his unalterable physical characteristics Obama is labeled black.  Even if Obama were to resort to the miracles of plastic surgery, skin-whitening cream, and hair coloring and straightening a la Michael Jackson, which Obama does not, he would still be labeled black.

            For contrast, examine the group portrait of UMNO Supreme Council members.  If they were to dispense with their songkok and Baju Melayu and instead put on modern attire, some of them could easily be mistaken as delegates from MCA or MIC, that is, until they open their big mouth and chant their chauvinistic slogan of Ketuanan Melayu!

Malaysian Obama Wannabe

Malaysians do not recognize their Obamas because they have adopted and are comfortable with the cultural values of the majority; they consider themselves and are being treated as a member of that majority.

            Our Malaysian Obamas are comfortable with and have successfully adopted the dominant culture.  They are fluent in Malay, not the language of their forefathers, just like Obama cannot speak a word of Swahili, or whatever language his late father used in Kenya.

            The heroes Obama invokes are Jefferson and Lincoln, not some Mau Mau chief or Zulu King.  Likewise, a Malaysian Obama wannabe must invoke local heroes, not Churchill, Nehru, or Mao.  Similarly, just as Obama has a fondness for conservative business suits and not colorful Kenyan robes, his Malaysian wannabe must not only be comfortable in songkok and batik, but must also look good in them.  You will not endear yourself to the majority (which is the first step to earning their votes) if you balk at wearing the songkok when in the palace to pay homage to the King or Sultan, or entering their place of worship wearing a short skirt and dispensing with a headscarf.

            Clearly Malaysia is not only ready for a Barack Obama, it has already produced many.  However, if we dispense with the racial label and ask the more substantive question of whether Malaysia could produce a future leader the caliber and transforming character of Barack Obama, then the answer is more complex and problematic.

            Obama captures the imagination of Americans with his brilliance, eloquence, and charisma.  He appeals to their finer instincts; he brings Americans together, transcending class, region, and most of all, race.

            Despite all that it is well to be reminded that Obama would not have secured his party’s nomination if the Democratic Party had adopted the procedures of the Republican Party, with its winner-takes-all rules.  Had the Democrats done that, Hilary Clinton would have been their nominee, not Obama.

            For another, Obama owes his meteoric rise in the Democratic Party to many senior party leaders, in particular his fellow senator and himself a former presidential candidate, John Kerry.  It was Kerry who spotlighted Obama by giving him a slot to address the Democratic National Convention in 2004 that catapulted Obama to the national scene.  Obama followed that with his stirring all-American success story in his bestselling autobiographies, Dreams of My Father and The Audacity of Hope.

            I am certain that Allah in His justness has also blessed Malaysia with individuals with the leadership talent and charisma of Obama.  Whether they would be nurtured by our institutions would be the biggest challenge.  Our schools and universities would more than likely stunt their development.

            Even if such individuals were lucky enough to escape the local system by attending international schools in Malaysia and then proceeding to great universities abroad, there is little reason to expect that they would be welcome back home.  More than likely such scarce talents would have been seduced by the more lucrative and challenging opportunities abroad.  Even if they were to return home they would have been tempted by the more rewarding careers in the private sector.

            This problem is not unique to Malaysia but also plagues the developing world.  It also afflicts economically “First World” but culturally and politically “Third World” countries like Singapore.

            Even if our brilliant young Malaysian Obama could fend off those temptations and opt for a career in politics, his path would not be fast or clear.  For one, he would have difficulty being accepted by the local party branch as those insecure village leaders would be wary of new challengers.  Even if he were to be accepted, there would not be a Kerry-like senior figure to grease the path.  Malaysian leaders promote only their kith and kind, not some unknown talent no matter how promising.

            Lastly, the political structure and hierarchy in Malaysia do not lend themselves to such rapid renewals of leadership.  The pattern is akin to the landing slots at major airports, with the third or fourth tier leaders all dutifully lining up taking their turns.  If perchance one proves later to be a dud, it matters not; his or her turn is coming up anyway.

            There is indeed a Malaysian Obama out there, but nobody cares or would bother to find or nurture him.  That unfortunately is a loss for him, but more so for the nation.

                This entry was posted on Friday, 14 November 2008, 6:43 am and is filed under
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Launch of booklet “The Cries of Sabah”

Am in Tawau together with Tunku Aziz  for the Tawau DAP Branch-cum-Sri Tanjong service centre opening this morning.

Tonight, will attend a history-making event, the first thousand-people political dinner in Tawau organized by Tawau DAP and the DAP’s sole Sabah State Assemblyman Jimmy Wong at Lau Gek Poh Memorial Hall.

This is another historic first by Tawau DAP. Last year, Tawau DAP organized a very successful  and capacity-crowd lunch-time ceramah and during the March 8 general election, pioneered a breakfast ceramah.

There are also other embarrassing “firsts:” in Tawau, as I found during my visit. The power breakdown is getting so regular and prolonged that Tawau’s daily  newspaper, Morning Post, was forcibly turned  into an evening paper when it could be distributed only at 4 pm!

Tonight, I will also launch a booklet
“The Cries of Sabah”
.

The following is the Introduction for the booklet:

Introduction

The thought of producing this booklet came to me when I received consecutively on Oct. 10/11 two heart-wrenching cries  from two visitors to my blog. (
The cries of Sabahans
;
Don’t neglect Sabah, please!
)

I felt very ashamed as a Malaysian that after 45 years of Malaysia, there is still such an ocean of ignorance among West Malaysians about Sabah and Sarawak. Even more shameful is that the Government is guilty of allowing such wide gap of differences – economy, education, health, basic  infrastructure – to exist between the people living on the two lands of the same country divided by the South China Sea. Clearly,  the Barisan Nasional (BN)  is not prepared to create a truly Malaysian nation where Sabahans and Sarawakians can fully  feel that they are treated as equal citizens and an integral part of the nation.

This is why BN has become quite irrelevant, not only to Sabahans and Sarawakians but to all Malaysian communities, whether Malays, Chinese, Indians, Kadazan-Dusun-Muruts, Ibans or  Orang Asli.

This booklet  also chronicles  the day-by-day effort made in Parliament in May this year to table a motion for the setting up of a Royal Commission of Inquiry on Illegal Immigrants in Sabah – the worst problem faced by Sabahans –  and how it failed because of the lack of support by the BN Members of Parliament, including those from Sabah.

It starts with the observation on the seemingly change of attitude shown by some Sabah Members of Parliament in the first Parliament sitting after the March 8,  2008 general election where the unprecedented political tsunami swept away five state governments from the control of the BN, and for the first time in the history of Malaysia, denied the BN 2/3 majority in Parliament.

The contents of this booklet are from  my blog postings, each of which  provoked heated discussion and debate on the topic at hand.

In the appendix are the blogs before the “political tsunami” of March 8, 2008, starting with my  parliamentary speech on “The New  Underclass in Sabah” on 16th April 2007.

Blog, a modern medium where everyone can  express his/her  views even anonymously as visitors, has given a completely new meaning to freedom of expression to Malaysians.

This is why the BN government has  invaded  the cyberspace and intruded into this new space of freedom.

There has been a transformation from its initial bewildered and hostile attitude to the blogosphere, highlighted by the “goblog” chapter of the previous “Misinformation Minister” Zainuddin Maidin and the Internal Security Act (ISA) detention of Malaysia’s famous blogger Raja Petra Kamaruddin to a more nuanced and engaged posture sending cybertroopers into the blogosphere to fight its cause.

A new sense of freedom provided by the Internet  must be matched by an equal sense of responsibility and I do not apologise for the minimum of moderation on my blog, disallowing language which are vulgar, obscene, inflammatory or inciting hatred of race or religion.

Although the latest parliamentary  effort to set up a Royal Commission of Inquiry on Illegal Immigrants in Sabah was not successful, the problems and plight faced by Malaysian Sabahans  and Malaysian Sarawakians  continue. But let Malaysians join hands as one people despite the obstacles and baggage of BN to change this.

The struggle must go on…

Lim Kit Siang

Parliament

November 2008

                This entry was posted on Saturday, 15 November 2008, 5:39 pm and is filed under
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Malaysian universities losing out to Thailand, Indonesia and Philippines

Malaysia is losing out in the unrelenting battle for international competitiveness among nations,  with Malaysian universities even losing out to universities in Thailand, Indonesia and Philippines – something completely unthinkable in the first three decades of our nationhood.

For the second consecutive year, Malaysia had  fallen completely out of the list of the world’s Top 200 Universities this year in the 2008 Times Higher Education Supplement (THES) – Quacquarelli Symonds (QS) World University Rankings.

The national shame of Malaysia falling completely out of the list of the world’s Top 200 Universities this year in the 2008 Times Higher Education Supplement (THES) – Quacquarelli Symonds (QS) World University Rankings is being compounded  by the ignominy of Malaysian universities losing out not only to top universities in Singapore, China, Japan, Hong Kong, Taiwan and  South Korea but also to other South East Asian nations like Thailand, Indonesia and Philippines.

The 2008 THES-QS rankings should be a “wake-up” call to the Higher Education Minister and the Cabinet of the advanced crisis of higher education in Malaysia, but I have given up hope that the Barisan Nasional government is capable of “waking up”!

For the second consecutive year, there is not only not a single university in the 2008 THES-QS  Top 200 Universities list, there is also not a single university in the separate ranking of Top 100 Universities for five subject areas – Natural Sciences, Social Sciences, Arts and Humanities; Life Sciences and Biomedicine; and Technology.

Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (UKM) and Universiti Malaya (UM) were in the 2006 Ranking, placed No. 185 and 192 respectively.  UKM plunged to 309 last year and improved to 250 this year while UM fell to 246 last year improving slightly to 230 this year – but both remain outside the Top 200 Universities ranking.

The government named Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM) as the Apex University but it has a dismal international rankings after being  included once in the Top 200 Universities list – No. 111 in 2004, No. 326 in 2005, 277 in 2006, No. 307 in 2007 and No. 313 in 2008.

It is both sad and pathetic that our Apex University, the USM, at  No. 313 ranking, is not only  left far behind in South East Asia by  Singapore (National University of Singapore No. 30 and Nanyang Technological University  No. 77) but also by Thailand (Chulalongkorn University No. 166), Indonesia (University of Indonesia No. 287) and the Philippines (Ateneo de Manila University No. 254 and University of the Philippines No. 276).

Until last year, Malaysian universities were all ranked well ahead of the Indonesian universities, but in the 2008 THES-QS World Top Universities ranking, Indonesian universities are catching up with Malaysian universities in leaps and bounds.

Last year for instance, the three top Indonesian universities were all ranked behind the Malaysian universities – University of Indonesia (UI) No. 395, Bandung Institute of Technology (ITB) No. 369 and Gajah Mada University (UGM) No. 360, as compared to the three top Malaysian universities University of Malaya (UM) No. 246, Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM) No. 307 and Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (UKM) No. 309.

In this year’s ranking, University of Indonesia has improved by 108 placings to be ranked as No. 287, Bandung Institute of Technology No. 315 and Gajah Mada University No. 316.

This means that in the 2008 THES-QS Ranking, University of Indonesia (No. 287) has narrowed the gap with University of Malaya (No. 230) and Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (No. 250), while ahead of Malaysia’s apex university, Universiti Sains Malaysia (No. 313), University Putra Malaysia (No. 320) and Universiti Teknologi Malaysia (No. 356).

The performance of Malaysian universities in the 2008 THES-QS Top 100 lists for the five subject areas are even more dismal, with not a single university making into the five lists   for two years consecutively although Malaysia secured four of these 500 prestigious slots in 2006  – University of Malaya was ranked 49 in Social Sciences and 95 in Natural Sciences, UKM was placed No. 62 in Natural Sciences, and University Sains Malaysia placed No. 96 for Life Sciences and Biomedicine.

For the 2008 THES-QS ranking,  National University of Singapore (NUS) (No. 30) is ranked among the Top 100 Universities for all the five categories while Nanyang Technological University (NTU) (No. 77) is ranked among the Top 100 universities for three categories, viz: Technology (No. 26); Life Sciences & Biomedicine (No. 78) and Social Sciences (No.89).

NUS is ranked No. 11 for Technology; No. 17 for Life Sciences and Biomedicine, No. 31 for Natural Sciences; No. 18  for Social Sciences and No. 30 for Arts & Humanities.

NTU is ranked No. 25 for Engineering & IT; No. 99 for Natural Sciences and No. 88 for Social Sciences.

Even Thailand’s Chulalongkorn University is rated among the Top 100 Universities for two categories – Technology  (No. 86) and Social Sciences (No. 72);   Indonesia’s Bandung Institute of Technology rated as  among the Top 100 universities for Technology (No. 90) and two universities in Philippines ranked among the Top 100 Universities for Arts and Humanities –  Ateneo de Manila University (No. 79) and University of the Philippines (No. 82).

After being placed in four of the 500 slots in the five Top 100 Universities for the five subjects in 2006, Malaysian universities has been conspicuously missing from

 all the five listings of Top 100 Universities for the five categories for the past two years.

There are over 30 “elite of elite” universities, which are not only ranked in the Top 200 Universities list, but also ranked in every one of the five Top 100 subject list.

Universities in the Asia-Pacific region which are in this exclusive  “elite of elites” list are:

(Ranking in Top 200 Universities in bracket)

Australia

ANU (16)

Sydney U (37)

Melbourne U (38)

Queensland U (43)

New South Wales  U (45)

Monash  U (47)

Japan

Tokyo U (19)

Hong Kong

Hong Kong  U (26)

Singapore

National University of Singapore (30)

China

Peking U (50)

Tsinghua  U (56)

South Korea

Seoul National U (50)

Why is Malaysia not in this “elite of elites” listing and when will Malaysia have a university which will have all-round excellence as to be included in this list?

Speech at the Tawau DAP Thousand-People “Towards A New Era” dinner at Lau Gek Poh Memorial Hall, Tawau on Saturday, 15th November 2008 at 9 pm)

                This entry was posted on Sunday, 16 November 2008, 8:05 am and is filed under
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Melamine contamination in the new “kangkong” menu of the new MCA leadership

Immediately after the 55th MCA General Assembly last month, Umno MPs objected noisily  in Parliament when I referred to the new “kangkong” MCA leadership, complaining  that I was too quick-on-the draw in deriding and running down the newly-elected MCA national leaders at the just-concluded  MCA party elections with Datuk Ong Tee Kiat as the new MCA President and Datuk Seri Dr. Chua Soi Lek as the new MCA Deputy President.

This was of course not the case, as the  term “kangkong” MCA leadership was first coined, which is completely value-neutral, was coined from inside the MCA – a play of the surnames of the new MCA President and Deputy President, which taken together, sounds like the Chinese term for “kangkong”. (“Ong” and “Chua”)

These Umno MPs were not really stout  and reliable defenders of MCA dignity and reputation for they were actually the ones frequently guilty of the uncomradely act of bullying    MPs and Ministers from the other Barisan Nasional parties, as illustrated by the recent attacks on the Gerakan Wanita chief and Deputy Information Minister, Datuk Tan Lian Hoe – but the mentality of being  “bully victims” had become so ingrained  and  entrenched in the thinking of MCA, Gerakan, MIC MPs and those from other BN component parties that nobody in BN dared to speak up tro defend  Lian Hoe from these attacks  except for DAP and Pakatan Rakyat MPs!

Although the Prime Minister and UMNO President, Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, denied at the recent MCA General Assembly that UMNO is a “bully party” to MCA and other BN component parties, nobody in MCA, Gerakan, MIC and the Sabah and Sarawak component parties really buy his denial.

The country is facing an unprecedented  multiple crisis of confidence whether political, economic, educational, nation-building, good governance or  key national institutions  whether judiciary, the police, the Attorney-General, the anti-Corruption Agency but nobody seems to be minding the  national business of governing the country even when the country is faced with the worst world  economic crisis in 80 years as a result of the global financial meltdown.

This is because  the leaders of Umno, the hegemon and bully in Barisan Nasional,  are too pre-occupied about the first high-level  party elections in 20 years to have much time for the mundane but necessary  and important tasks of good governance.

MCA, Gerakan, MIC and the other BN component parties have become so marginalised that even with UMNO leaders completely obsessed and side-tracked  by their own party elections, which will last another four  months,  it is just unthinkable that  the non-UMNO Ministers and leaders could  fill the void in policy-making and day-to-day governance caused by the most proctracted and dirtiest Umno party elections  in history!

Things have not been  helped when the other BN component parties themselves are pre-occupied with their own internal power struggle or survival.

I do not want to comment on the going-ons in the BN component parties but it cannot escape public notice that  there is “melamine contamination” in the new “kangkong” menu of the new MCA leadership.

Recently, melamine  contamination of milk, foodstuff, drinks, chocolates and petfood which claimed innocent lives created a  nation-wide and international scare and scandal about food safety.

But even in “political foodstuffs”, there can also be melamine contamination as evident from the  MCA  “kangkang:” leadership and menu.

In the MIC, there is what has been described as “the battle of the has-beens” with former  MIC vice-president Datuk M. Muthupalaniappan announcing that he would challenge MIC president Datuk Seri S. Samy Vellu for the party’s top post,

In the Gerakan, there is neither  a sense of direction nor leadership.

As a result,  the country will continue to be like a rudderless ship until Umno ends its party election convulsions fuelled by the worst corruption and money politics in Umno history.

(Speech 2 at the Tawau DAP Thousand-People “Towards A New Era” Dinner on Saturday, 15th November 2008)

                This entry was posted on Sunday, 16 November 2008, 3:46 pm and is filed under
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RM7 billion “black hole” in 2009 Budget – Najib has got lousy advisers

Yesterday, the Sabah Chief Minister Datuk Seri Musa Aman presented a walloping RM2.78 billion budget for the state for 2009, declaring that the amount allocated would be able to keep up the economic momentum to ensure Sabah’s continuous growth, especially amidst the current economic turmoil.

He also announced a higher state development fund for next year to the tune of RM1.040 billion.

Very impressive but where have all the past billion-ringgit development funds for Sabah gone to, and will the huge budget and massive develoment funds announced by Musa yesterday go the way of past funds – disappearing into thin air instead of translated into projects on the ground  to directly benefit the people?

In Tawau this morning, I visited Jalan Sin Onn, an important artery for Tawau but which is choked with traffic.  The Barisan Nasional Government had promised to build Jalan Sin Onn into a four-lane dual carriageway, way back in the Seventh Malaysia Plan as part of its “Sabah Baru” manifesto to capture power in Sabah state.

It was in the Seventh Malaysia Plan as well as in the Eighth Malaysia Plan.  It is now in the Ninth Malaysia Plan but will it again be shunted to the Tenth Malaysia Plan into a ‘never-never” future, without a single foot of construction?

Jalan Sin Onn has become a daily traffic nightmare in broad daylight in Tawau.

I will meet the Works Minister, Datuk Mohd Zin Mohamed  in Parliament to check on the status of the upgrading of Jalan Sin Onn in Tawau.

The Sabah Chief Minister should not talk about development in Sabah until he can resolve once and for all the basic infrastructure problems like regular and efficient  power and water supply.

We just launched my new book “The Cries of Sabah”, which also highlighted the development nightmare of Sabahans to the extent that it is said that “If there is no power disruption in Sabah, then it’s not Sabah” and where SESB stands for “Sabah Everyday Sure Blackout”!

The power breakdown in Tawau in the last two days were so bad  (I am told that the people of Tawau and Sabah have become quite  numbed to such disruptions) that it had turned  Tawau’s daily newspaper, Morning Post, into an evening paper, as it could only be printed and distributed at  4 pm!

All over the world, governments  are preparing their countries to face the world’s worst economic crisis in 80 years.  China has announced a US$586 billion economic stimulus package while  South Korea unveiled a US$11 billion stimulus package.

In the United States, Congress is working with the Bush Administration to craft a US$700 billion bailout of troubled US banks.

Malaysia, however, is an oddity. Although the government has announced a measly RM7 billion economic stimulus package when winding up the debate on the 2009 Budget on November 4, this RM7 billion economic stimulus package is quite a mirage as it has not been formally presented to Parliament by way of an amendment to the 2009 Budget and is therefore not before Parliament  for approval when every sen of government expenditure must be passed by the House.

This is why there is a complete air of unreality in the 2009 Budget debate, as there is a RM7 billion “black hole” so long as the economic stimulus package has not been incorporated into the 2009 Budget and placed on the agenda for parliamentary approval.

This RN7 billion “black hole” in the 2009 Budget is completely indefensible and unacceptable. The Prime Minister-designate Datuk Seri Najib Razak has got very lousy advisers who could land him in such a trouble as not complying with parliamentary procedures and practices in seeking a formal approval from Parliament for the RM7 billion package.

He should rectify this gross mistake without any delay or he would  seen as  acting in a very arrogant and supercilious  manner in his relationship with Parliament – five months before he actually become Prime Minister!

(Speech 3 at the Tawau DAP Thousand-People “Towards A New Era” dinner at Lau Gek Poh Memorial Hall, Tawau on Saturday, 15th November 2008 at 9 pm)

                This entry was posted on Sunday, 16 November 2008, 5:28 pm and is filed under
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JHEOA benefited bureaucrats for 50 years but not Orang Asli

I congratulated the Minister for Rural and Regional Development, Tan Sri Muhammad Muhammad Taib for getting the nomination for the contest for Umno Deputy President though I remarked that his integrity was questioned by none other than his former boss and former Prime Minister Tun Dr. Mahathir Mohamad.

(This was what Mahathir said on November 12, 2008 on Mohammad’s successful nomination for the Umno Deputy President contest:
“I think there is a lot of hanky panky going on. When you know that someone has a bad history is still getting support, I think that bad history has relevance to his support.”
)

This was my preface when seeking clarifications  during Muhammad’s winding-up of his Ministry during the 2009 Budget committee stage debate.

Muhammd put up a stoic front  and refused to be drawn into responding to Mahathir’s remarks although there was  the usual raucous yelling and protests by the UMNO parliamentary jeer-leaders.

I went on to ask Muhammad why the Jabatan Hal Ehwal Orang Asli (JHEOA)  had failed in its mandate to develop the Orang Asli community for over half a century.  The people who had really benefited from the JHOEA in the past 50 years were the JHOEA bureaucrats rather than the Orang Asli people.

I remarked that the  real test of the success of the  JHEOA would be when it could be dissolved, marking the success in the upliftment of the Orang Asli community in the country.

Instead, the Orang Asli community continues to be marginalized and left behind by the currents of  development.

I told Parliament of my visit to Pos Legap in Lintang, Sungei Siput on Oct. 25 where I met Orang Asli from the surrounding Orang Asli settlements.

There were about 1,200 Orang Asli but only  two per cent of the 800 adults were gainfully employed as Risda, which operates the 400 hectares of oil palm holdings in the locality, employed Indonesian and not Orang Asli workers.

Before 2005, there were clinics at Pos Legap, Pos Yom, Pos Kuala Mu, Pos Perwor, Pos Poi and Pos Piah, but they have all been closed down and now a mobile clinic comes once a month to provide basic services to women and children.

There is a national primary school in Pos Legap with over 200 students in seven classes. There is not a single Orang Asli among the eight teachers in the school.

I went to Pos Legap from Jalong and the road into the Orang Asli settlement is so broken down and totally lacked maintenance that it is a big shame and disgrace  to Malaysia’s claim as a developed nation.

I asked Muhammad whether he could give personal attention to the complaints of Pos Legap to  ensure that the Orang Asli adults could find gainful employment, that at least 50 per cent or four of the teachers in the Pos Legap primary school are Orang Asli and to get the road properly maintained.

I also asked Muhammad what is being done to ensure that there is a strong Orang Asli representation among the JHOEA personnel, and why no Orang Asli has yet been appointed to be Director-General of JHOEA and State Directors.

In his reply, Muhammad said that an Orang Asli is the Deputy Director-General of JHOEA.

On my various requests, Muihammad pointed out that the JHOEA representatives were in Parliament and they were nodding, signifying that they would attend to my suggestions.

I will visit the JHOEA Director and Deputy Director-General to find out why there cannot be a major breakthrough in the upliftment of the Orang Asli community to be on par with the other Malaysian citizens after over half-a-century of effort.

Add new tag
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Orang Asli

                This entry was posted on Monday, 17 November 2008, 7:26 pm and is filed under
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Najib should not leave the country with a RM7 billion “black hole” in 2009 Budget

As the Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister, Datuk Seri Najib Razak is leaving for Peru and the United States tomorrow and will not be back until early next month, when the 2009 Budget would have been passed by Parliament, there is one important thing he should do in the next 24 hours before he goes abroad.

Najib should not leave behind a RM7 billion  “black hole” in the 2009 Budget and should direct Second Finance Minister Tan Sri Mohd Nor Yakcop  to take necessary action to incorporate the economic stimulus package  into the 2009 Budget for  parliamentary approval.

All over the world, governments  are preparing their countries to face the world’s worst economic crisis in 80 years.  China has announced a US$586 billion economic stimulus package while  South Korea unveiled a US$11 billion stimulus package.  In the United States, Congress is working with the Bush Administration to craft a US$700 billion bailout of troubled US banks.

Malaysia, however, is an oddity. Although the government has announced a measly RM7 billion economic stimulus package when winding up the debate on the 2009 Budget on November 4, this RM7 billion economic stimulus package is quite a mirage as it has not been formally presented to Parliament by way of an amendment to the 2009 Budget and is therefore not before Parliament  for approval when every sen of government expenditure must be passed by the House.

This is why there is a complete air of unreality in the 2009 Budget debate, as there is a RM7 billion “black hole” so long as the economic stimulus package has not been incorporated into the 2009 Budget and placed on the agenda for parliamentary approval.

This RN7 billion “black hole” in the 2009 Budget is completely indefensible and unacceptable. The Prime Minister-designate Datuk Seri Najib Razak has got very lousy advisers who could land him in such a trouble as not complying with parliamentary procedures and practices in seeking a formal approval from Parliament for the RM7 billion package. Najib should leave clear instruction for this parliamentary faux pax to be rectified in his absence.

(Media Conference Statement in Parliament on Monday 17th  November 2008 at 11am)

                This entry was posted on Monday, 17 November 2008, 1:16 pm and is filed under
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No PAC report on Eurocopter and no PAC investigation into HSBB and BII scandals after more than a month

No  Public Accounts Committee (PAC) report on its inquiry into the RM1.6 billion Eurocopter deal has been tabled in Parliament today although the PAC Chairman Datuk Seri Azmi Khalid had promised last Wednesday that the PAC report would be ready to be tabled in two or three days.

More than a month had passed since Azmi announced on Oct. 14 that the PAC would investigate into three scandals which had shook Parliament and the country – the Eurcopter helicopter, Bank International Indonesia (BII) and the high speed broadband (HSBB) deals but there has been no inquiry into the latter two apart from a most  unsatisfactory inquiry into the first.

This does not reflect well on the chairmanship of PAC by Azmi.

Why is the PAC reluctant to go full-steam to conduct investigations into the propriety, accountability and integrity of the HSBB and BII deals?

I have just returned from Tawau and I can personally vouch  that Malaysia’s present broadband network is a shame to Malaysia’s claim that boasts as being at the cutting edge of information and  communications technology.

Whether in Tawau or in Klang Valley, it can be a torture to use the mobile broadbands available in the country, whether Maxis or Celcom, demonstrating Malaysia’s unique broadband contribution to the world of IT in having “snail-pace broadband”!

The PAC cannot be blind to the urgent economic need for Malaysia to catch up in having the most up-to-date broadband network and technology if we are not to lose out in the global competitiveness stakes.

Less than two months ago, Singapore awarded its next-generation high-speed broadband network (Next Gen NBN)  in an international tender to the consortium, OpenNet to design and build an islandwide network offering 95 per cent of homes and offices Internet speeds of up to 1Gbps by June 2012.

What is Telekom Malaysia’s RM11.3 billion (with RM2.4 billion government subsidy) offering?  Only 10 Mbps to 100 Mbps for residential customers and 10 Mbps to 1Gbps for business at high-impact economic areas and over a 10 year period till 2018!

Malaysia has already been left behind by other broadband powers like South Korea, Hong Kong, Japan and Singapore and will trail even further behind with the RM11.3 billion HSBB contract to Telekom Malaysia, allowing it continued monopoly for another seven years without having to open up the last mile copper to allow other industry players to buy the “last mile” at a fair price and thus promote a full liberalisation of the telco industry.

PAC should step in now and force a review of the RM11.3 billion HSBB contract to Telekom Malaysia.

PAC Chairman Azmi will again be failing in his duty if he drags his feet and procrastinates further in conducting prompt investigations into both the HSBB and BII deals.

                This entry was posted on Monday, 17 November 2008, 4:23 pm and is filed under
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Ronnie Liu charged – third political trial after 308 political tsunami

I was at the Petaling Jaya Magistrate’s Court 3 where DAP Selangor State Exco member Ronnie Liu was charged with a new-fangled offence – abetting in the obstruction of a public officer in the carrying out of his duty without the alleged principal offender being charged.

If convicted, Ronnie will be liable to the penalties of the parent charge of Section  186 of the Penal Code on obstruction of a public officer in carrying out his duties, i.e. RM10,000 fine, two years jail or both. This can lead to forfeiture of Ronnie’s position  as Selangor State Assemblyman and Exco member and disqualification from standing for any elective office for five years.

Ronnie’s charge is the third political trial after the March 8 political tsunami, after blogger Raja Petra Kamaruddin for criminal defamation and sedition and Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim for sodomy.

Clearly, the Barisan Nasional leaders have neither  heard the message nor learn the lessons of the March 8 “political tsunami” which, in the relevant case, is that there should be no more political trials in the country.

It is these political trials which brought the national and international confidence in the independence, impartiality and integrity of the judiciary to such a nadir.

I was intrigued by Deputy Public Prosecutor Roslan Abu Bakar invoking “the spirit of law” in his application for a RM5,000 bail for Ronnie as it is the Public Prosecutor who had violated “the spirit of law” in fathering such a new-fangled charge against Ronnie – more than one year after its alleged commission.

If the charge against Ronnie is so serious and grave, why did the Police and the Attorney-General take more than a year before taking action?

Is  the sudden arrest and charging of Ronnie after forgetting about the matter for moré than a year more related to the current Umno party elections so that  former Selangor Mentri Besar Khir Toyo could gain political mileage in his contest for the post of  Umno Youth leader?

Ronnie is out on RM3,500 bail with one surety with the case fixed for mention for Feb. 10 next year.

                This entry was posted on Monday, 17 November 2008, 5:11 pm and is filed under
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Why PM and DPM out of the country at same time this week – breaking 30-yr standing rule?

The Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi is in Uzbekistan for a four-day official visit, accompanied by his wife and Cabinet Ministers including Datuk Seri Nazri Aziz and Senator Tan Sri Amirsham Abdul Aziz (both from the Prime Minister’s Department), Datuk Shafie Apdal (Unity, Culture, Arts and Heritage) and Datuk Seri Mohamed Khaled Nordin (Higher Education).  Abdullah will only return back to office for duty on Friday, 21st November 2008.

Tomorrow, the Deputy Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak will leave with another team of Cabinet Ministers for the 16th Apec Economic Leaders Meeting (AELM) in Lima, Peru, starting this week.

It has been reported that Najib will go ahead to New York from Peru and will only be back home early next month.

This would mean that for at least  two days on Wednesday and Thursday, both the Prime Minister and Deputy Prime Minister would be out of the country at the same time – which will run counter to the 30-year standing rule or of longer vintage that both the Prime Minister and Deputy Prime Minister should not be out of the country at the same.

Why has this standing rule been  broken this week?

Who will be the Acting Prime Minister in these two days when both the Prime Minister and Deputy Prime Minister will be out of the country?  It cannot be Tan Sri Muhyideen Yassin, who is the front-runner for the election for the  Umno Deputy President, as he, together with the Home Minister, Datuk Seri Syed Hamid Albar, will be leaving together with Najib tomorrow for Peru.

Can it be the most senior Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department, Tan Sri Bernard Dompok or the  newly elected MCA President, Datuk Seri Ong Tee Kiat?

This is of course anathema particularly to UMNO MPs  who cannot even accept the clear-cut constitutional position that  the post of Prime Minister is open to any Malaysian regardless of race, religion or territory.

I do not know who will be minding the Prime Minister’s Office, but let the Prime Minister’s Office disclose to all Malaysians the number times since the past 30 years when both the Prime Minister and Deputy Prime Minister had been out of the country at the same time!

                This entry was posted on Monday, 17 November 2008, 11:30 am and is filed under
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Enhancing Human Capital Through Health

by
M. Bakri Musa

Two well-recognized factors to enhancing the quality of human capital are health and education.  When citizens are healthy and well educated, their capacity to be productive and contributing members of society is greatly enhanced.  The converse, when they are unhealthy and poorly educated, they are a burden upon society.

            To the pair I would add a third:  freedom.  To get the best out of people, we must grant them space to enable them to develop their talent and pursue their passion.  Then we should grant them the freedom to express themselves and their creations.

            Great and inspiring works in the arts and sciences are the creations of those who are passionate in what they do.  Such passions come only when people are given the freedom to pursue their dreams and aspirations.  Such endeavors are rarely undertaken purely in the pursuit of honor or wealth but for their own intrinsic pleasures and rewards.

            Honors and material rewards may well follow, and we should not minimize their importance.  They help inspire and motivate the rest – the talented and otherwise – who need the extra nudge.

            As for freedom, there may be exceptions to my statement but they are more apparent than real.  Ananta Pramoedya Toer produced his greatest literary works while imprisoned under the most trying physical conditions on Pulau Buru.  The authorities may have imprisoned him physically, but as he contemptuously asserted in his autobiography, they could not imprison his will and thought, though not for lack of trying.

            In this session, my fellow panelist Dr. Azly Rahman will discuss education, his expertise, and I, health.  We will not be discussing the third factor:  freedom.

            There is an important link between health and education, especially in the young, as succinctly stated by President Clinton’s Surgeon-General Jocelyn Elder, “You cannot educate a child who is not healthy, and you cannot keep a child healthy who is not educated.”

Citizens’ Health and the Economy

Citizens’ good health is good for the economy.  The WHO Commission on Macroeconomics and Health chaired by Jeffrey Sachs, currently the holder of the Ungku Aziz Chair in Economics at University of Malaya, reaffirms the powerful link between health, poverty reduction, and economic growth.  The report challenges the traditional argument that the health of citizens will automatically improve with economic growth.  Indeed the opposite is true; improved health is a critical requirement for economic development in poor countries.

            A NBER report claims that a one-year improvement in a country’s life expectancy (an index of health) contributes to a four percent increase in economic output, and that good health of the citizens has a greater impact on the economy than work experience or years of schooling.

            Anecdotally consider that had P. Ramlee had heart angioplasty back in 1973, imagine how many more beautiful songs and wonderful movies he would have made.  Another, quantify the economic value of Mahathir’s contributions since he had his successful heart surgery in 1989.

            Considerations of good health and its impact on economic development aside, I would like to demolish a few myths relating health, which should be the concern of everyone, and medicine, my vocation.  The realities are these.  First, there is minimal if any relationship between the two.  Civil engineers contribute more toward citizens’ good health than medical doctors.  This is true here in Buffalo as in Bombay.  Indeed the problem over there is precisely that Indian engineers are more concerned with writing software codes for American companies than trying to build reliable sewer systems or garbage collection in their city.

            Before they built a freeway near my California town, I spent many a night and weekend in the operating suite dealing with severe accident cases.  Thankfully, those cases are much fewer today.  The cost of the new freeway has now more than repaid itself through the lives saved and limbs preserved, not to mention property damages spared.

            The second is that there is little correlation between the amount of resources expended on healthcare and good health.  America spends twice as much on a per capita basis on healthcare as compared to Canada or Germany, but we are not twice as healthy as they are.

            Third, the assertion by the WHO Commission that investments in healthcare pay economic dividends is true only up to a point.  America spends nearly 15 percent of its GDP on healthcare, and fast rising, threatening the economy.  The concern here is with reining in the escalating costs.

            Last, increasingly the destroyers of good health today are caused less by diseases due to pathogens and more the consequences of lifestyles:  smoking, alcohol, diet, and lack of exercise.  This is true in the developed as well as developing world.  Even with diseases like AIDS where there is a clear biologic etiology, the most effective interventions lie not with expensive new therapies rather with changes in lifestyles.  This is even truer with other modern scourges including drug addiction.  Consequently the remedies to the major threats on health and lives today lay for the most part outside the purview of medicine.

            The other startling revelation is that often the most effective interventions affecting our health and thus productivity are also the cheapest.  The economic historian David Landes writes that the one medical device that has the greatest impact on worker productivity is the eyeglass, followed by the equally simple and cheap body soap.

            Following that would be investments in civil engineering projects like reliable piped potable water, effective garbage collection, and a functioning sewer system.  Even providing electricity contributes to good health, as it would reduce food poisoning as foods could now be safely stored in refrigerators instead of becoming rancid quickly in a hot climate.  Even if these services were to be highly subsidized, they would still create considerable savings by eliminating such preventable diseases as cholera, dysentery, and hepatitis.

            Today one disease that imposes the greatest economic burden worldwide is malaria.  Controlling it, together with other vector-driven diseases like dengue, rests more with civil engineering than modern medicine.  South Florida has the same climate as Malaysia, yet Miami is not inundated with malaria or dengue because its lawns are cut, swamps drained, and gutters covered and unclogged.  There is also regular surveillance followed by fogging operations if need be.  All these are outside the purview of medicine.

            Again here, simple physical measures like using insecticide-impregnated mosquito nets are very effective prophylaxis.  I am surprised that in many Malaysian homes these nets are a rarity today.

            The next level would be adopting generally accepted public health practices like vaccination as well as maternal and child healthcare.  The greatest improvement in infant and maternal mortality rates in Malaysia came not with the building of the new medical schools but with the introduction of rural health programs manned by midwives and public health nurses pioneered by the Director-General of Health, Tan Sri Majid Ismail.  His achievements are even more remarkable considering that he was not a public health professional, rather an orthopedic surgeon.

            Last, where they appropriately should belong, at the bottom of the totem pole, would be fancy hospitals, expensive medical schools, and highly-paid physicians.  Spectacular medical advances are by their very nature dramatic and headline-hogging, thus easily grabbing the attention of leaders.  They would then want to do the same thing in their own country just to prove that the natives are just as smart.  Cost considerations or deliberate weighing in the various alternatives never enter the deliberations.

Halfway Technology Versus Real Advances in Medicine

We must distinguish between genuine medical advances which are not only highly effective but also cheap from what the American pathologist Lewis Thomas called “halfway technology,” which are dramatic and highly expensive “advances” but of limited utility.  The classic example is polio.  The real advance there was the development of an effective vaccine.  The halfway technologies were the iron lungs and the elaborate limb restoration surgeries.

            Many years ago Kelantan proudly announced the setting up of a medical school.  That was misplaced considering that the state was (still is) regularly plagued with outbreaks of cholera for lack of an effective community water supply and reliable sewer system.  A medical school however, is sexier.

            Malaysia is not alone in falling for this trap, so is the rest of the developing world.  The bulk of children in India lack the basics; without running water, healthcare, and immunization.  Yet it has no shortage of expensive medical schools.  Those investments had zero impact on the health of ordinary Indians, especially the children.  All India succeeded in doing is to provide doctors for American hospitals.

            Third World leaders go for this route first as they want their children to be attending those medical schools.  It is their personal, not national priority.

            Lastly, medical tourism; this is more a niche of tourist industry rather than of medical care.  It has more to do with bringing in the tourist dollar and only secondarily in enhancing medical care.  Yet properly adopted, it could serve both.

            To cater for these affluent patients especially those from the West, you must provide superior service, or at least one that meets or even exceeds prevailing international standards, and at a competitive price to compensate for the “foreign” factor.

            If your target market were the affluent of the Third World, then your standards need not have to be so stringent, but then that market is small and not very lucrative.  It is also transient, as eventually those countries too will upgrade their services and recapture their lost market.

            Besides, the Western market is huge as modern medical care is now the “right” of not just the rich but of everyone, including those dependent on the state.  .In meeting that high international standard needed to cater for this market, local healthcare providers will have to improve their services in terms of professional quality, consumer friendliness, and of course, price.  These efforts in turn would spill over to benefit the local market, with those highly developed skills and expertise diffusing onto the local community.

            To meet this international standard, local medical schools and teaching hospitals must be upgraded substantially.  Local young specialists must acquire internationally-recognized professional qualifications.  The specialist certificate issued by the local university would not impress or attract an international cliental.

            On a more practical level, these professionals must not only be conversant but also comfortable with their clients.  As they are for the most part from the West, our healthcare professionals must be fluent in English and at ease with Western culture.  Meaning, the way we teach our doctors will have to change to emphasize English language skills.

            While that would be desirable, there is one hidden potential trap.  As those professionals now have internationally-recognized qualifications and skills, the world is now the market for their services, not just Malaysia.  You thus risk losing your precious talent to the West, as is the current experience in most developing countries.  The solution to that however is not to lower local standards, rather to make sure that conditions at home are attractive enough professionally and otherwise so they would not be tempted to look beyond our borders.

            Malaysia is way ahead of India or China socially and economically.  Malaysians would not tolerate having to depend on “barefoot village doctors” for their medical care.  Meaning, we could still have our fancy hospitals and medical schools but at the same time we must make sure that our drains are regularly unclogged and be covered, the bulk of our citizens have access to reliable piped potable water and adequate sewer treatment systems, and that Malaysian be covered with basic public health measures as child and maternal care, including the standard immunizations.  Those steps would ensure that Malaysians remain healthy and be productive members of society.

[Talk given at a forum at the University of Buffalo, on November 1, 2008, themed “Alif Ba Ta, Towards the New Malay,” organized by Kelab UMNO New York-New Jersey.]

                This entry was posted on Tuesday, 18 November 2008, 7:07 am and is filed under
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Idris vs Rafiah – more important is the sharp fall in standards of Malaysian universities

Higher Education Deputy Minister Datuk Idris Haron should either defend his insinuation against Datuk Rafiah Salim in Parliament implying that the former University of Malaya Vice Chancellor was lacking in “high level performance” or he should be gentleman enough to apologise if he could not stand by his statement.

Malaysians concerned by the continuous drop and decline in standards of Malaysian universities must be distressed by the unnecessary diversion from what should be the sole focus of all involved in higher education – that Malaysian university standards have fallen so low dangerously that we are even losing out to universities in Thailand, Indonesia and Philippines – something completely unthinkable in the first three decades of our nationhood.

For the second consecutive year, Malaysia had fallen completely out of the list of the world’s Top 200 Universities this year in the 2008 Times Higher Education Supplement (THES) – Quacquarelli Symonds (QS) World University Rankings.

The national shame of Malaysia falling completely out of the list of the world’s Top 200 Universities this year in the 2008 Times Higher Education Supplement (THES) – Quacquarelli Symonds (QS) World University Rankings is being compounded by the ignominy of Malaysian universities losing out not only to top universities in Singapore, China, Japan, Hong Kong, Taiwan and South Korea but also to other South East Asian nations like Thailand, Indonesia and Philippines.

For the second consecutive year, there is not only not a single university in the 2008 THES-QS Top 200 Universities list, there is also not a single university in the separate ranking of Top 100 Universities for five subject areas – Natural Sciences, Social Sciences, Arts and Humanities; Life Sciences and Biomedicine; and Technology.

Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (UKM) and Universiti Malaya (UM) were in the 2006 Ranking, placed No. 185 and 192 respectively. UKM plunged to 309 last year and improved to 250 this year while UM fell to 246 last year improving slightly to 230 this year – but both remain outside the Top 200 Universities ranking.

The government named Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM) as the Apex University but it has a dismal international rankings after being included once in the Top 200 Universities list – No. 111 in 2004, No. 326 in 2005, 277 in 2006, No. 307 in 2007 and No. 313 in 2008.

It is both sad and pathetic that our Apex University, the USM, at No. 313 ranking, is not only left far behind in South East Asia by Singapore (National University of Singapore No. 30 and Nanyang Technological University No. 77) but also by Thailand (Chulalongkorn University No. 166), Indonesia (University of Indonesia No. 287) and the Philippines (Ateneo de Manila University No. 254 and University of the Philippines No. 276).

Until last year, Malaysian universities were all ranked well ahead of the Indonesian universities, but in the 2008 THES-QS World Top Universities ranking, Indonesian universities are catching up with Malaysian universities in leaps and bounds.

Last year for instance, the three top Indonesian universities were all ranked behind the Malaysian universities – University of Indonesia (UI) No. 395, Bandung Institute of Technology (ITB) No. 369 and Gajah Mada University (UGM) No. 360, as compared to the three top Malaysian universities University of Malaya (UM) No. 246, Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM) No. 307 and Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (UKM) No. 309.

In this year’s ranking, University of Indonesia has improved by 108 placings to be ranked as No. 287, Bandung Institute of Technology No. 315 and Gajah Mada University No. 316.

This means that in the 2008 THES-QS Ranking, University of Indonesia (No. 287) has narrowed the gap with University of Malaya (No. 230) and Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (No. 250), while ahead of Malaysia’s apex university, Universiti Sains Malaysia (No. 313), University Putra Malaysia (No. 320) and Universiti Teknologi Malaysia (No. 356).

The performance of Malaysian universities in the 2008 THES-QS Top 100 lists for the five subject areas are even more dismal, with not a single university making into the five lists   for two years consecutively although Malaysia secured four of these 500 prestigious slots in 2006 – University of Malaya was ranked 49 in Social Sciences and 95 in Natural Sciences, UKM was placed No. 62 in Natural Sciences, and University Sains Malaysia placed No. 96 for Life Sciences and Biomedicine.

For the 2008 THES-QS ranking, National University of Singapore (NUS) (No. 30) is ranked among the Top 100 Universities for all the five categories while Nanyang Technological University (NTU) (No. 77) is ranked among the Top 100 universities for three categories, viz: Technology (No. 26); Life Sciences & Biomedicine (No. 78) and Social Sciences (No.89).

NUS is ranked No. 11 for Technology; No. 17 for Life Sciences and Biomedicine, No. 31 for Natural Sciences; No.18 for Social Sciences and No. 30 for Arts & Humanities.

NTU is ranked No. 25 for Engineering & IT; No. 99 for Natural Sciences and No. 88 for Social Sciences.

Even Thailand’s Chulalongkorn University is rated among the Top 100 Universities for two categories – Technology (No. 86) and Social Sciences (No. 72);   Indonesia’s Bandung Institute of Technology rated as among the Top 100 universities for Technology (No. 90) and two universities in Philippines ranked among the Top 100 Universities for Arts and Humanities – Ateneo de Manila University (No. 79) and University of the Philippines (No. 82).

After being placed in four of the 500 slots in the five Top 100 Universities for the five subjects in 2006, Malaysian universities has been conspicuously missing from all the five listings of Top 100 Universities for the five categories for the past two years.

There are over 30 “elite of elite” universities, which are not only ranked in the Top 200 Universities list, but also ranked in every one of the five Top 100 subject list.

Universities in the Asia-Pacific region which are in this exclusive “elite of elites” list are:

(Ranking in Top 200 Universities in bracket)

Australia

ANU (16)

Sydney U (37)

Melbourne U (38)

Queensland U (43)

New South Wales U (45)

Monash U (47)

Japan

Tokyo U (19)

Hong Kong

Hong Kong U (26)

Singapore

National University of Singapore (30)

China

Peking U (50)

Tsinghua U (56)

South Korea

Seoul National U (50)

Why is Malaysia not in this “elite of elites” listing and when will Malaysia have a university which will have all-round excellence as to be included in this list?

                This entry was posted on Tuesday, 18 November 2008, 2:27 pm and is filed under
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Is Malaysia’s first and biggest oceanarium in Mabul necessary?

I asked the Natural Resources and Environment Minister Datuk Douglas Uggah Embas in Parliament less than half an hour ago this question – is Malaysia’s proposed first and biggest oceanarium  resort of luxury chalets in Mabul  in the east coast of Sabah necessary?

This was during Douglas’ winding-up of his ministry in the 2009 Budget committee debate.

I said that the controversial oceanarium resort at Pulau Mabul had become hot  news in the last few days and asked for the Federal Government’s stand on the opposition of environmentalists, villagers and dive operators who warned that the proposed 33 ha parcel of shallows will bring disaster to Mabul marine life and may also degrade the eco-sensitive coral reefs of Pulau Sipadan, a 20-minute boat ride away.

I referred in particular to the views of the Sabah Environment Protection Association president
Wong Tack
who not only asked if the oceanarium was necessary “because one could easily see fishes swimming in the clear Mabul waters” but how approval to such a massive project could be given before the terms of the EIA are known.

Wong Tack had also pointedly reminded the authorities concerned to what happened in Sipadan in 2006 when a construction barge ran aground, destroying a coral reef batch the size of three tennis courts and putting Malaysia in a bad light.

In his reply, Douglas said this was a new issue but gave an assurance that his Ministry would do its utmost to protect marine life.

                This entry was posted on Tuesday, 18 November 2008, 3:25 pm and is filed under
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