Day: August 3, 2014

— Koon Yew Yin
The Malay Mail Online
August 2, 2014

AUGUST 2 — The World Bank has procurement guidelines which all the borrowers of Bank funding have to follow. The guidelines include the system of calling tenders. It is a system which has helped to prevent corruption even in the most corrupted countries in the world.

Malaysians are getting fed up with the government’s failure to reform the tender system as well as to check corruption and abuse which is costing us billions of ringgit annually, and bleeding the country’s finances dry.

Although the Government has appointed a minister, Paul Low, to take charge of the implementation of transparency in the government, it is clear that he is getting nowhere. Senator Paul Low has claimed that he is highly motivated in promoting and implementing new transparency procedures in order to curb corruption and cronyism. Well, being motivated is one thing but running around in circles and establishing another layer of bureaucratic smoke and mirrors has been the main outcome of the Minister’s more than one year in office. Continue reading “Follow the World Bank procurement guidelines to prevent corruption and abuse”

It is the height of irony that Utusan Malaysia is complaining about selective prosecution and investigation when the UMNO-owned daily has been the biggest beneficiary of such criminal oversight and abuses of power by various enforcement agencies particularly the police and the Attorney-General’s Chambers as Utusan continues to enjoy both “immunity and impunity” for a series of seditious articles inciting racial and religious hatred and tensions in the country in recent years.

Now Utusan alleges that non-Muslims are becoming blatant in demeaning Islam because authorities are not pursuing them with the same vigour applied to Malays.

Utusan Malaysia further alleges that “the eagerness of non-Muslims to insult Islam can no longer be ignored” because of the “hesitance or fear on the part of the authorities to punish non-Malays for such activity”.

This is utter bunkum. Continue reading “Height of irony Utusan Malaysia complaining about selective prosecution and investigation when it has been the major beneficiary enjoying immunity and impunity for series of seditious articles inciting racial and religious hatred and tensions in the country in recent years”

The sudden imposition of the 480% Johore causeway toll hikes is absurd, presumptuous and preposterous, giving Datuk Seri Najib Razak a bad name as a Prime Minister whose word is not his bond.

ABSURD because the astronomical, unreasonable and unconscionable toll hikes clearly for the Eastern Dispersal Link (EDL) are being imposed on the majority of the thousands of vehicles and the 200,000 people crossing the Johor causeway daily who do not use the EDL for them to reach the Johor Bahru Customs, Immigration and Quarantine (CIQ).

Isn’t it absurd that the majority of daily vehicles and commuters of the Johor causeway who do not use EDl are being penalized in having to pay the unfair and astronomical causeway toll hikes for upkeep and maintenance of EDL?

Can the Federal or State government cite another instance in the country where vehicular traffic using one highway or access have to pay toll for another highway that they are not using?

Is the reason why there is no full and proper consultation before the Johor causeway toll hikes are implemented because those in authority realize the height of absurdity of such an imposition, and they have no confidence in facing the legitimate and righteous wrath of those who are made victims of such bureaucratic absurdity – having to pay toll hikes for the EDL when they are not using the EDL? Continue reading “480% Johore causeway toll hikes absurd, presumptuous and preposterous – giving Najib a bad name as a Prime Minister whose word is not his bond”