What is wrong with Selangor Pakatan Rakyat government?

ARCHIVES 2009

By admin-s On Aug 12, 2009

By Lim Kit Siang

There is certainly the “need to be worried” matter in Selangor. One quote going around from some prominent businessmen is that ” It took BN 50 yrs to become so arrogant, but it took PR only 1 (one) year to be just as arrogant”.

Nowhere is that business sentiment more acutely felt than amongst some housing developers.

The aetiology is of course multifactorial. Many unscrupulous and other less-than-straight developers had ridden on the past (less transparent) govt to execute projects that left much bitter aftertaste/heartaches amongst unconsulted residents in a forced topdown approach. Unfortunately in yesteryears (and even recently) REHDA had not come down hard on these recalitrants, thus much of society had tarred all and sundry developers in the same manner.

After March 2008, the pendulum has swung to the other extreme end, made more evident/entrenched when many politicians(largely from PR) oversold/overbought excessive and simplistic ideas of ‘fixing-up the developers’ and ‘being-with-the-people’. Some end up losing the capability to size-up/tease-out the secret personal agendas of ‘certain rakyat citizens’, lose their objectvity and easily slide into and maintain the same opposition mentality of protest, championing the “cause of the ‘rakyat’”. In Selangor, some join the ranks of protests against the state govt. These populist politicians are easily egged on by a few self-serving residents, the latter being only too pleased to titillate these populist-politicians.

The Selangor PR is thus moulded by these events/forces. I dare say 2 (two) camps exist, the ‘pro-rakyat/pro-citizen’ vs the ‘pro-business/pro-developer’. Magnified by a revulsion to 52 yrs of authoritarian abuse/pendulum-swing/greenie resurgence, no marks to your guess in who the dominant influence is! In DAP, we(or rather many) are under the literal influence of the word “socialism” which oftentimes bespelled them to an exaggerated stance. This oversimplified erroneous state (rakyat vs business/developer) negated and undermined the roles of the ‘genuine citizenry’ and the ‘fairly-honest/ethical deveopers’ and let-off the scruples of federalism/corrupt-politicians/crooked-parasitic-developers. A distracting tai-chi thus effectively allowed the bad guys off scot free, as the good resident groups now pit themselves against the developer/business community! Poor Khalid(Tan Sri), God have mercy on him.

The dynamic outcome of the summation of these two forces appears to determine the direction of policy-setting and influence development(or its lack) as well as its type in Selangor. So when the “rakyat” forces prevailed, we see a proliferation of socialist-like policies/programmes, eg Usia Emas, Tawas, Beras/gula handouts, etc. But money do not grow on trees. It runs out pretty fast. Soon we may agihkan kemiskinan. The economy is slowing. The pasar-malam (relatively recession-proof industry) hawkers are lamenting on business-drops of up to 50%.

Bitter reality is harshly sinking in. Pro-development policies and programmes must emerge. The actual implimentation of the economic packages is mandatory to stimulate economic activity and just as importantly to give hope to the rakyat and generate an image of doer-mentality (after a March announcement, a 6 mth time-gap of little action is deafeningly embarassing). The only recourse is for PR to proclaim a “pro-development/pro-business BUT transparent” approach.

PR must facilitate economic activity with transparency and accountability as its fundamental underpining. The focus must be to encourage investors, not to throw a wet blanket at them. Our priority must be to the man in the street( small-time businessmen, employee such as clerks/technicians, form 5 to college graduates), who needs jobs and job-stability. Only economic activity can give them a chance. They have little savings reserve, unlike more established older persons. More so in these trying times, all Aduns/MPs must make it their job to try to create/maintain jobs and get developers to interface with residents. But the traffic-clogged roads became anathema to development! How about the “moratorium to development” proposal?