Tuesday, May 26, 2009

Port Klang Free Zone - A layman’s perspective

As the authorities concerned procrastinated, the costs to the government seemed to have ballooned from Rm4billion a few years ago, to an estimated Rm12billion!

What amazes me is the large amount of money involved, even after the scandal was exposed. I could understand the huge costs as a result of politicians making a killing by buying cheap (with prior knowledge of course) and selling high to the government (at the expense of the public, why worry?) at the initial stage. But we are talking about real estate and development, which if necessary, could have been controlled or even stopped while awaiting further decisions or pending further audits and investigation.

If it involved huge loans, then efforts should have been made to cut losses by swallowing some pride that it was a big mistake after all. How could they have allowed the costs to escalate while the persons responsible ‘dilly dally’ over investigations simply because of the VIPs involved? Now that there is a report, delays again over legality! In other words, any excuse, and the costs escalate even more.

Most people are resigned to the likely outcome that in spite of the humongous loss to the country as a result of corruption, inefficiencies and lack of accountability, nobody will be charged or if charged, nobody will be guilty! That’s the beauty of being politicians on the right side of the political divide in Malaysia.

No comments:

Post a Comment