Stop pushing for the crooked bridge
Ever since Tun Dr. Mahathir rejoined UMNO, he has been interfering in the new government under Prime Minister Najib Razak. Once again in the media and now, in his own blog site, he is pushing hard for building the crooked bridge.
This time though, Dr. Mahathir is playing his last trump card by appealing to our Malaysian sense of patriotism and nationalism and by trying to whip up anti-Singaporean sentiments. This is clear from his first sentence on the subject as well as his last sentence as found in his blog posting on 20 April 2009 on “The Crooked Bridge”.
His first sentence notes that “The Star reported that Chinese businessmen in Johor Baru want the Crooked Bridge to be built” and his last sentence asks: “Does the Government need to ask Singapore for permission to build the now desirable crooked bridge? Is Malaysia free to do things in its own territory? Are we really independent? I wonder.”
The public should note that the latest Mahathir blast on the bridge contains no clear or strong justification for building the crooked bridge – no economic reason, no technical reason and most important of all, no balanced analysis of the pros and cons of building the bridge. The blog note may in fact be construed as just a naked appeal to primordial sentiment.
Hopefully, the new PM will not allow himself to be bullied by Dr. Mahathir but will stand his ground on this issue. However, should the pressure from the Mahathir camp continue to grow and become difficult to ignore, one way of defusing it is to have full public disclosure of the crooked bridge project, its history, the major and minor players who have been involved in it, the findings of various feasibility studies dealing with it, various cost-benefit scenarios and not least of all, the financial ramifications of the project, including the payment of more than 100 million ringgit to the contractor for the decision to stop the proposal – a payment made despite the fact that the contractor did not do any physical construction work on site.
Let the public be provided with all the facts of the project (much of which has not been available because of the operation of the Official Secrets Act) and let the public (especially competent professionals) help in the decision after a full and fair appraisal. If the crooked bridge is to be built, it must only be done because it is doable and in the best interests of the country and not just because the former Prime Minister wants it.
As an old engineer, let me touch on some of the insurmountable difficulties involved in building the bridge that should be part of the appraisal process when considering the crooked bridge construction.
