Pakatan Rakyat – Epitome of ‘Competency, Accountability & Transparency’

The recent Pakatan Rakyat related scandals in Selangor, convinced what neutral critics and political analyst (active and those armchair analyst ) suspected when Pakatan came to power in 4 or rather 5 states, that nothing much is going to change and reforms remains in the lips of politicians from the Opposition and never really took off.

The worst, Pakatan are repeating the same blunders committed by BN, going to the extend of imitating BN way of doing things, despite all those reformist chants and sloganeering in the statements and ceramahs.

Being a resident in Selangor, I have not seen much change for more than 2 years now. The honeymoon period was long over. The honeymoon period should have been the time where Pakatan should have done a comprehensive review of the state government workings, policies and make necessary changes or in their own words, reforms.

Agreed that there were several feel good Rakyat friendly policies in place but ‘merakyatkan ekonomi’ really means nothing, when it comes to real policies or opportunities benefiting the Rakyat at large, economically.

The recent reports, counter reports, sacking, accusations, tweets or rather mistweets over supports letters only goes to show that Pakatan politicians are no different from BN. I remember that during the PKFZ scandal, the opposition went to town accusing Minister of transport, Chan Kong Choy of corruption and abuse of power for issuing support letters to companies involved in the project to secure loans and contracts.

As usual, there were noises from Mr Lim Kit Siang calling for Royal Commision of Enquiry on PKFZ. What about Selangor support letters issue? It was said that support letters were issued to contractors to win contracts worth millions. That is what was reported, what about those which went unreported or undeclared. Lim Kit Siang should seek appointment with Sultan of Selangor and demand for a Royal Commission of Enquiry. Why the silence when Kit Siang slams BN over any thing that goes wrong in this country, the next moment it happens.

When talking about reforms, if this issue was not reported (initially there was accusations that the MCA owned newspaper, The Star , was simply making up stories to destabilise the DAP powered state government), nothing would have been done to change or eliminate issuance of ‘support letters’ , because there was no intention to reform in the first place. MB Khalid was jolted when The Star headlined the story, admitting that investigation has been going on for 2 weeks ( about a month now, with no new updates) with no one asked to go on leave or suspended, inviting accusations that there were attempts to cover up the issue and gross lack of transparency over the whole affair.

Even the appointment of councilors were chaotic. Until now no one know how the selection process works and it turns out, they did another BN, no transparency whatsoever and in usual Malaysian style, the appointments were made late and changes were made in the last minutes. Even their ally, PSM was left bewildered with the omission of their own candidate.


Sand theft and illegal mining also shown the that the state government has learnt how to make money and contribute well in advance towards high income economy. Never miond that it benefits a small group of people working for the state government company, KKSB, which does nothing but works as a middleman between the actual sand mining companies and the state government. KKSB is nothing but a poor imitation of BN held state government companies which do nothing but act like blood sucking middlemen.

What would be the role of the Jabatan Tanah in all these, watch your newborn (KKSB) mint money and pay their staff 6 months of bonus over a year. KKSB’s contribution towards high income economy is 10 years ahead of the Najib’s plan. And very few companies around the world pay 6 months of bonus within a year of operations. As far as I know, only some lucky Skim Cepat Kaya companies have achieved that feat.

What has the state government done with the apparent mismanagement of sand mining activity and also the state government’s company’s role in it? The SELCAT hearing, completed in record 3 days, did not even ask for full fledged investigation to be carried out neither did they invite MACC to investigate. Evidences offered by own PKR MP, Manikavasagam was rejected due to some silly technicalities. Aren’t they interested in getting to the bottom of the issue, I don’t think so. Perhaps members of SELCAT, were worried some of them would have been dragged into the issue as perhaps, they would have issued supports letters to related companies which they can't even remember now.

Not much information has been much has been forthcoming ever since. No one knows if anyone was penalized or changes forthcoming in the company, except for statements blaming BN for even bigger scams during their days in power. Didn’t the Rakyat sent BN packing for all their misdeeds? What is the point of blaming BN again and again.

Now the state government plans a 15Million Ringgit information(or propaganda) blitz to give Rakyat a clearer picture of state governments workings, policies and achievements. I don’t know how this benefits the Rakyat. In Selangor where, broadband and internet access are reasonably high, nobody really reads mainstream media or watches RTM for example and with the fact that all Pakatan Parties’ newsletters or bulletins are readily available in the market, is this spending necessary. Kelantan, with lesser access to the net, Astro and even newspapers have managed to hold Kelantan for so long.

And finally, look at the behaviors of the key ADUNs and EXCO members. Their denials, counter denials, accusations, tweets, statements and media play only proves that every one of them are only interested to safeguard the own position. They are not even worried about repercussions and party image when about going public defending themselves. Where are the party dicipline and party media communication procedures?

Where is CEO, sorry, should be MB, Khalid in all these, only the EXCO members know. He is apparently not in the know of most of the things happening around him and he appears to be as confused and indecisive in the mould of Abdullah Badawi.

How all these resonate with ‘Competency, Accountability and Transparency, I really don’t know? Maybe the architect of CAT, Emperor Lim Guan Eng has the answers and perhaps he, in his own arrogant style, can lecture some of his DAP comrades what those principles are in reality, if it was ever practiced in the first place.

By the way, Penang State Government promised that their leaders would undertake Asset declaration exercise. They delayed it claiming that standard form was not provided by federal government. If I am not mistaken, that was slightly more two years ago. Yet Mr Guan Eng’s government still appears not to have the ‘Competency’ to come up with a simple ‘Asset Declaration’ form and do not feel ‘Accountable’ to the promise that they made to the Rakyat. No one actually asked for it then.

Perhaps they now feel that the there is no need to practice ‘Transparency’ as their Pakatan counterparts in other states, after more than two years of governing, do not believe in those slogans anymore.