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PKFZ questions – why Transport Ministry should not cut losses instead of continuing to throw good money after bad to create a RM12.5 billion PKFZ “white elephant”?

In less than two days, MCA President and Transport Minister, Datuk Seri Ong Tee Keat has forgotten the directive of the Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Najib Razak to “provide answers on every question raised by any party” on the PricewaterhouseCooper (PwC) audit report on the Port Klang Free Zone (PKFZ) and has started to be abusive and refused to answer the many queries raised by the Malaysian public in the past three days.

Ong even refused to answer the six questions I have posed on the RM12.5 billion PKFZ scandal in the past two days, but I will pose another three questions today, as this is what the Prime Minister had promised – that he had directed Ong to respond to “every question raised by any party” on the PKFZ.

Ong seems to be “on the run” from these questions, like his predecessor as Transport Minister, Datuk Seri Chan Kong Choy in November 2007. Why is this?

At the media conference at Port Klang Authority (PKA) on Friday, after a DAP team had spent five hours leafing through the three-and-a-half-inch high documentary annexure to the PwC audit report on PKFZ, containing 20 appendices, I had asked the government to consider the option to cut losses in PKFZ instead of continuing to incur further losses in view of the PWC warning that the cost of the ill-advised project could skyrocket by another RM5 billion to reach the astronomical total of RM12.453 billion.
Continue reading “PKFZ questions – why Transport Ministry should not cut losses instead of continuing to throw good money after bad to create a RM12.5 billion PKFZ “white elephant”?”

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Abolish Overseas Undergraduate Scholarships

by M. Bakri Musa

Every year at this time the nation goes through its regular spasms of indignation over perceived unfair distribution of scholarships for studies abroad for those with the Sijil Persekutuan Malaysia (SPM). This being Malaysia, such controversies inevitably and quickly acquire ugly racial overtones, no matter how ‘objective’ or ‘sophisticated’ the arguments put forth.

I suggest that we abolish all public scholarships for undergraduate studies abroad. That would at least remove yet another source of racial disagreement. The fewer such contentious issues we have, the better it would be for Malaysia.

Public scholarships for studies abroad should only be given to those pursuing higher degrees. As for the handful of our brightest who secured undergraduate slots at the world’s most competitive universities, rest assured that there will be no shortage of sponsors outside of government if these students were truly in need of financial aid.

Whatever money left over after funding those pursuing higher degrees abroad should then be diverted to strengthening our local universities, which desperately need the support.

A candidate with only the SPM regardless of the number of A’s obtained could secure a place only at a third-rate institution in America. We do not need to send our students there. Even when on the rare occasions that they do end up at a respectable university, these students have to spend a semester or two doing preparatory courses (essentially Sixth Form). Continue reading “Abolish Overseas Undergraduate Scholarships”