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| idiotic vision 2020 |
| From Perwaja To Proton Dato' Seri Mahathir Mohamed insists, like a scratched gramophone record, of his pride in bringing Malaysia to the brink of industrialisation, and promises more to the end of his days as Prime Minister. All then rise up and praise him for his brilliant transformation of the Malaysian economy, from a sleepy hollow of a rich agrcultural country into a near-bankrupt country allegedly industrialised but really one in which the transformation has not worked. Those who disagree are quickly attacked for jealousy at Malaysia's success, spear-carriers of the opposition, anti-national or worse. Since 1998, the attacks come from his own side. These days he does not even bother to explain or say why or how he justifies his claims. He admits, reluctantly, his pride, the Multimedia Super Corridor, has failed, after tens of billions spent without thought or plan to construct a Malaysian Silicon Valley bigger than Singapore's acreage. It has as much relevance to computers and electronics as the Kuala Lumpur International Airport has for tourism. But it benefitted the cronies, courtiers and siblings of the Establishment. It was a short-term venture for doubtful gains, with neither the government nor those actively pursuing it with any clear idea of what it was all about. We still do not know what the MSC is all about, except that many business men close to power have made billions out of it in real estate gains. Today, the land rents alone force those interested, local and foreign, out of the area. Price gouging, to not put a fine gloss to it, is the order of the day. For MSC to succeed, there must first be a large pool of indigenous technicians and middle-level professionals who could sustain the foreign investment. But our education is not geared them, only graduates from doubtful universities in computer technology. Even lab attendants are scarce. The Prime Minister's admission yesterday is of yet another official unworkable dream biting the dust. Is it not time now for the Prime Minister to give us a progress report of his short-gun entry into the first league, how much all this cost, and if on hindsight, he was right, and why? Let us look at what he sees as successes: the F-1 motor race, the Commonwealth Games, Kuala Lumput City Centre, Kuala Lumput International Airport, KL Sentral, Putra Jaya, Langkawi (so successful that the finance minister, Tun Daim Zainuddin, wants another 15 5-star hotels built even if the existing hotels are empty most of the year), the privatisation of garbage (because the householder does not have to pay for them), the PUNB US$5 billion scam (because it was discovered before it succeeded). These cost an arm and a leg, provide no returns, and would for ever and ever be a drag on the exchequer. We do not know how much this sets up back, the figures beyond even Parliament's reach. But they are dragged out as evidence of Malaysia having arrived. And what failed? The Prime Minister now admits to the MSC. Let me add to this list: Perwaja (to sustain it billions continue to be poured into a bottomless pit), about RM30 billion lost in unauthorised foreign exchange dealings, all privatisation projects, MAS, the Bakun hydroelectric dam project, the Light Rapid Transit trains, the monorail, the Linear City, Hicom, the Telekom Tower, Celcom, Proton. The list is incomplete. All of this has set the country back by more than RM150 billion. Not on this list are the billions in foreign exchange lost by Malaysian business men who took them because it made them look as important business men on the world scene, and which they cannot now repay. Again we do not know what the actual bill is. Nor, I dare suggest, the government. Where once we lost money in the millions, today it is in the billions. No one bats an eyelid when projects are announced with no thought of its impact on society or how they would be paid for. The government believes that more projects are announced, the more popular it would be. But this destroyed our banking systems, the government acquired billions in debt through rescuing cronies, courtiers in siblings through two instituitions created for the purpose, Danamodal and Danaharta. We are now told, in self-delusion, that Malaysian business men can now compete with worldclass contractors in road building. They are in the Philippines with a privatised road it cannot yet complete, bought a debt-ridden steel company there for more money than it was worth and now cannot even be written off for more than RM3.2 billion, a housing project in Cambodia so successful that its builders cannot enter the country except at their peril. And we are told all this is proof of Malaysia's success. With successes like these, who needs failures to show we are inexhorably en route to disaster? M.G.G. Pillai pillai@mgg.pc.my |
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