Malaysian landscape in 2012

The political landscape in Malaysia in year 2012 is nothing but chaos. It is a wonder that government machineries are still functioning, albeit at a reduced efficiency. There is too much politiking, with the ruling party Barisan National, going all out to win the coming General Elections which must be held before April 2013. The Prime Minister had himself declared that the ruling party must win the elections at all costs, while the opposition coalition goes all out to expose the wrong doings of the government.
The most successful expose of wrong doing involved the husband of former Social Welfare Minister, Shahrizat Abdul Jalil, who was entrusted to produce beef in a multi-million Ringgit project (The National Feedlot Project), RM250 million to be exact, but who ended up owning properties in Malaysia and Singapore to the tune of millions of ringgit, using company money loaned by the government specifically for the stated purpose of producing sufficient beef for the country. The court case is still on-going. Meanwhile, a high ranking officer from the company with a Datuk title had been charged in court for cheating the Managing Director of the company related to this so called NFC scandal. Just a few days ago, the person who exposed this scandal, also called ' Cow-gate ', a member of the oppostion party PKR, Mohd Rafizi Ramli, had been charged with possession and leakage of banking documents related to the company in its dealing with the bank, thus contravening the Banking and Financial Institutions Act (BAFIA) . The Prime Minister had since said that Rafizi should have handed the documents to the MACC, the Malaysia anti corruption agency. Rafizi had since exposed another so called scandal involving the award of the Ampang LRT extension project to George Kent, a producer of water supply meters. He claimed that the major shareholder of the listed company is a golfing partner of the Prime Minister, and that George Kent was disqualified in earlier rounds of evaluations because it had only undertaken projects with value less than RM50 million and had no experience in LRT project works. This is a billion Ringgit project. Member of Parliament, Tony Pua, came out to criticize when George Kent announced that it would subcontract 70% to 80% of its work, even to rival companies who lost in the tender bids.
Other issues played up include the water supply for Selangor. The company contracted to provided treated water to Selangor and Putrajaya, Syabas, claimed there is not enough water to distribute and that it proposed to draw up a water rationing schedule for the state. This set off an alarm and the Selangor Government wasted no time in checking the water levels at the 7 dams owned by the state. It was confirmed that the dams were full. Why then ration? But Syabas countered that there is a shortage of treated water. This sets people thinking perhaps the solution to this problem is to build more treatment plants and upgrade the existing ones. The solution looks quite simple indeed. The rattled Selangor government condemned the action of Syabas, which tantamounts to subbotage. It immediately presented a proposal to the Federal government, as under the terms of the contract the Selangor government is obliged to do, to take over Syabas. Of course, the Federal government would not allow that. It formed a panel headed by the Deputy Prime Minister, to study the whole issue and arrived at the conclusion that rationing was not allowed. But the Federal government would expedite the project to channel water from Pahang to Selangor. To do this, a tunnel is required (in fact the building of the tunnel is already half complete) and a treatment plant in Selangor is also needed. The whole project cost is estimated to be RM8.65 billion. Herein lies the problem. To build the treatment plant in Selangor requires the consent from the state government.
Now the question arises as to priority. On the one hand, Syabas claims that there is a shortage of treated water NOW. So, funds must be alloted to upgrade and build treatment plants now. The Langat2 project, as it is called, can be ready only in 2014 or 2015. Moreover, the people of Selangor have started asking why is there a need to channel water from Pahang at exorbitant cost, when there are 7 dams full of water. Even in the worst case scenario of prolonged draught, wouldn't the draught affect Pahang too? Can't water be sourced from rivers in Selangor? Some experts in water supply have since identified a few possible souces in the state where water can be drawn. This is a clear case of unhealthy politicking. Not forgetting that eventually, the people of Selangor will have to pay for this high cost. There is no such thing as free lunch.