How Najib is tackling the flood problem
Salleh Said Keruak
Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak is being criticised for not attending to the flood problem. I really do not know what they expect from the Prime Minister and in what way they want him to ‘attend’ to the flood.
The Malaysian mentality is that when there is a flood then the political leaders, especially the Prime Minister, must wade in the flood with the water up to their stomach, or at least above the knees. Then they would be considered as doing something.
First of all, the floodwater is contaminated with sewage. In fact, the Health Ministry has advised children to not play or swim in the flood because there is a danger they may catch diseases. Hence is it advisable for Malaysia’s CEO to ‘play’ in the floodwaters?
Say Najib does what these people want — he wades in the flood with the water up to his chest. In what way is he taking care of the problem other than having a look-see? He can see the flood without having to stand in the dirty water.
What needs to be done is to come out with a long-term solution on how to reduce the flood problem. And I say reduce and not eliminate because even in advanced countries it floods and this is a natural phenomena or act of nature. And they do not even have monsoon rains like Malaysia does.
For example, Terengganu has always been flooding since the beginning of time. (And in Kelantan they take floods as a natural and annual affair that they even once organised a Pesta Banjir). However, since they built the Kenyir Dam in Terengganu, the floods got worse. And this is because the flow of the Terengganu River slowed down so the silt could not be pushed out to sea and instead accumulated at the river mouth.
Because of the accumulation of silt at the river mouth, the floodwater could not be pushed out to sea and instead flowed inland to flood the towns and settlements along the river. Hence the way to solve this was to dredge the river mouth to clear the blockage.
