For someone who had ruled Malaysia as PM for 22 years (or 40% out of 55 years since independence in 1957), it is surprising (or is it unsurprising?) that he is worried over the possibility of opposition Pakatan Rakyat's victory in the next General Election. Many believe and would readily agree that Dr. Mahathir ruled as de facto dictator because no minister in his cabinet dared to question his decisions.
Offhand, personally I can think of mega projects like new federal capital, Putrajaya, which was created out of agricultural land into ostentatious government office buildings, man-made lakes so that beautiful bridges could be build over them, largest roundabout round a hill, and so on; brand-new airport, KLIA which appears under-used compared to its low-cost counterpart, LCCT; Sepang F1 circuit which is losing its appeal; Petronas Twin Towers in KL built on former race course land which helped his crony made a bundle, enough to build his own building next to it; Proton national car project which costed our country dearly (until recent privatisation) and still effectively forcing car buyers to pay much more because of high import and excise duties to protect its survival; and so on.
One thing we can be sure is that it was at the time when Petronas was producing oil and earning much revenues which accounted for almost half the nation's yearly. That Petronas is only accountable to the PM meant its accounts were shrouded in secrecy and much of its revenues unaccounted for. Recently, Tun had countered that his successor, Abdullah Badawi had used up more during his much shorter period as PM. But then again, we are talking about billions of Ringgit. When someone was fully in charge of such huge amounts of money, the opaque procurement process which benefited the political party, its leaders and selected cronies would have ensured huge benefits to the decision-making PMs, whether or not we could find the trails leading to them. But being Malaysia, and Umno being the only political party running the country since day one, corruption in the ordinary sense had been covered up (with the help of Acts of Parliament like OSA, ISA and Sedition Act) and treated as acceptable over the years. All the institutions meant to check and control were subservient to the PM and effectively 'closed one eye and shut the other' when it mattered. So it is unbelievable when I read about the overly simplistic points mentioned by the great Tun in his blog...
MY FEARS
http://chedet.cc/blog/?p=775
Incidentally, Sakmongkol AK47 on Mahathirism...
http://sakmongkol.blogspot.com/2012/06/mahathirism-goes-to-yemen.html
Link
Offhand, personally I can think of mega projects like new federal capital, Putrajaya, which was created out of agricultural land into ostentatious government office buildings, man-made lakes so that beautiful bridges could be build over them, largest roundabout round a hill, and so on; brand-new airport, KLIA which appears under-used compared to its low-cost counterpart, LCCT; Sepang F1 circuit which is losing its appeal; Petronas Twin Towers in KL built on former race course land which helped his crony made a bundle, enough to build his own building next to it; Proton national car project which costed our country dearly (until recent privatisation) and still effectively forcing car buyers to pay much more because of high import and excise duties to protect its survival; and so on.
One thing we can be sure is that it was at the time when Petronas was producing oil and earning much revenues which accounted for almost half the nation's yearly. That Petronas is only accountable to the PM meant its accounts were shrouded in secrecy and much of its revenues unaccounted for. Recently, Tun had countered that his successor, Abdullah Badawi had used up more during his much shorter period as PM. But then again, we are talking about billions of Ringgit. When someone was fully in charge of such huge amounts of money, the opaque procurement process which benefited the political party, its leaders and selected cronies would have ensured huge benefits to the decision-making PMs, whether or not we could find the trails leading to them. But being Malaysia, and Umno being the only political party running the country since day one, corruption in the ordinary sense had been covered up (with the help of Acts of Parliament like OSA, ISA and Sedition Act) and treated as acceptable over the years. All the institutions meant to check and control were subservient to the PM and effectively 'closed one eye and shut the other' when it mattered. So it is unbelievable when I read about the overly simplistic points mentioned by the great Tun in his blog...
MY FEARS
http://chedet.cc/blog/?p=775
Incidentally, Sakmongkol AK47 on Mahathirism...
http://sakmongkol.blogspot.com/2012/06/mahathirism-goes-to-yemen.html
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