By Chua Jui Meng
The annual report of the Government Transformation Programme (GTP) has just come out. Predictably it is a feel good and highly manipulative document whose actual accomplishments are totally out of line with what is needed to improve the lives of Malaysians.
All the statistics regurgitated by a compliant Barisan Nasional mass media are meant to impress Malaysians but they actually bring scorn and disbelief.
Some rural infrastructure has finally been delivered by the BN government. But how much exactly?
Are these so-called accomplishments the long overdue entitlements to the rural areas? Are these KPI (Key Performance Index) on rural infrastructure what has been promised by so many BN prime ministers for so long? Have the rural folk who have waited for decades finally been given what the BN rural representatives have promised every elections without fail – ever since 1957!
On closer scrutiny of the statistical data, it is clear that only a very small number of the rural population are benefitting from the GTP. Malaysia has a rural population estimated at eight million people or two million rural households.
Let us examine closely what the GTP has provided to make the New Straits Times scream in its headline “Better quality of life for rural folk.”
A pathetic 16,000 houses were repaired or constructed. This is a number which any government should be ashamed to put out in a report.
Water was delivered to only 36,000 rural households. This number is not only pathetically low but is in fact only half the small number promised by the government.
Electricity was delivered to even less households – 27,000. Finally, only 780km of roads were constructed.
The truth is that the rural development record of the government in the GTP is no better than its past woeful record which saw our rural people neglected and impoverished so that many had no choice but to migrate to the urban areas to find a decent living.
‘Shameful record of under-achievement’
The GTP is a shameful record of under-achievement, mismanagement, failure to deliver the goods and empty promises. A few rural constituencies where by-elections were held during the past two years where the government was forced to provide roads and other infrastructure so as to bribe voters have benefitted. A very small number of favoured rural households of BN supporters have also benefitted.
In contrast, the vast majority of the over two million rural households have got nothing from the GTP.
Yet the government and its mass media cronies are trying to fool them by reminding them they are enjoying a better quality of life thanks to the GTP.
The same pack of lies is being told to the average Malaysian on the other five NKRAs (National Key Result Areas). Has the urban transportation system really improved under the GTP? The best people to answer this question are the commuters caught in countless hours of waiting in queues in the cities and urban areas.
Has crime been reduced? Ask the average housewife in our housing estates who is living in insecurity and fear? Is corruption being eradicated? Don’t ask Umnoputeras or other BNputeras or cronies the question.
Rather ask the average Malaysian who has to pay coffee money for everything and who is fully aware of how high-level corruption continues to flourish under BN rule.
Has student achievement improved as a result of the GTP? Ask the parents who are taking their children out of the national school system if they can afford it, and who have to spend hundreds of dollars every month on private tuition because the standard in the schools are so bad.
The government and the GTP drafting team may have their statistical fairy tales but few believe or have any confidence in what the BN spin masters are pushing out. Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak and his back room boys and consultants massaging the GTP may believe like Goebbels, the Nazi propaganda chief, that if they repeat a lie long enough, it becomes truth.
However, Malaysians are a lot smarter and wiser to the tricks of the BN. They know that the GTP is a lot of hype and empty hot air leading to the coming elections. The PKR is confident that the good people of Malaysia will know how to separate truth from BN fiction and lies.
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