Looking at the capital city Kuala Lumpur, I am convinced we are almost on par with the rest of the advanced North American and European cities in terms of almost everything. But yet, we are a nation so “embroiled”!
Yes! We are embroiled with all sorts of politics — racial politics, religious politics, automobile politics, toll gate politics and most of all, all the petty politics that we could ever think of.
As I have said in my previous columns, whenever I want to get a correct perspective on my life, I will go to Canada and when I am there I can see so clearly where Malaysia is heading.
I see my country is going to be one of those failed societies where people do not make sense as human beings anymore — they fight among themselves, sometimes over nothing but their shadows!
In Canada, a government is elected every five years to be given the task of managing and looking after the country’s and its peoples’ interest. If an elected government there is not seen to be doing its job, rest assured it will be voted out come the next elections.
In Malaysia, it is as though the elected government is on a suicidal mode — that is what it seems like every time I read the newspapers. I see a lot of Cabinet ministers and powerful tycoons who appear to be not in the know, or in the loop, insofar as decision-making is concerned.
Take, for example, the sports gambling issue when an influential business tycoon took it upon himself to say the government would issue his company a football betting licence. In other words, the government has granted him a licence to allow Malaysians to gamble during the World Cup.
Why and how the news got reported is another story, but the prime minister had to come out with a statement stating otherwise. But, alas, the damage had been done!
A Cabinet minister, known for his verbal diarrhoea, made a comment stating the country’s parliament will be moved away from its present site. Then he apologised later on for giving the wrong information.
And every time such a major faux pas occurs, the prime minister or the government has had to come out with a correction.
In Canada they do collect tolls on certain highways, but the amount is not exorbitant and it is not something that is so glaring that the public will complain. Highway No 1, a major highway that links the eastern seaboard of Canada to the western seaboard, has no tolls.
The distance from east to west in Canada is about 4,000 miles, and millions of vehicles ply the highway every day, 24/7, and yet the highway is virtually free from toll. Reason being, I was told by an ex-Canadian Cabinet minister, the road is for the convenience of the Canadian people.
“Why should we tax them since Canadians are already being taxed annually anyway, and asking them to pay for any toll will further anger and burden them,” said this former senior Liberal Cabinet minister under the late Prime Minister Pierre Elliot Trudeau.
Back to us, why does a company need RM40 billion to reduce our toll by 10 per cent? Why doesn’t the government just lower the toll rate, say by 50 per cent? Will the government go bankrupt by doing that? I don’t think so!
As for me, the reason toll is really such an issue is because we are not so stupid as not to realise that if I was paid only five sen for every single car plying the North-South Expressway just for a year, I would be a multi-millionaire!
So, to our government, be sensible. Do something drastic on the toll issue that can and will benefit Malaysians and I am sure you will be loved and supported by the people!
As for companies who have come up with a scheme to improve the existing toll rates, they are not doing it from the goodness of their hearts.
Hey, wake up, they are only doing it for the easy money that they can grab from us!
17/11/10
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