Posted on

RM69 mil London Sports Centre – proof of shambolic Abdullah government?

The bursting of the London High Performance Sports Training Centre balloon in less than a week raises concern whether the highly-regarded Abdullah administration had in three years degenerated into a shambolic and incompetent government.

Last Thursday, Deputy Prime Minister and the Chairman of the Cabinet Committee on Sports Development, Datuk Seri Najib Razak announced a new lease of life for the controversial London Sports Centre, originally slated to cost RM490 million until it ran into quite unanimous opposition in the country including from Members of Parliament from both sides of the House.

Najib assured that “no additional costs will be incurred” in turning the Tun Abdul Razak Research Centre (TARRC) in Brickendonbury into a sports training centre as “we will be using existing facilities”.

Yet the cost for turning the TARRC into a sports training centre instead of a sports complex will be a walloping big bill of RM69 million for “refurbishments” – which will include building accommodation for athletes and upgrading the fields and equipment all to be ready by April.

However, a Sun exclusive “Sports centre plan stalled” by R. Nadeswaran reported that despite Najib’s announcement that the London training centre will be full operational by April, it is likely to be a non-starter.

This is because the East Herts Council, under whose jurisdiction the Brickendonbury centre falls, holds the position that issues covering planning and development encountered in previous applications remain relevant to new proposals to converting existing buildings to provide accommodation for athletes, installing a football pitch, and extending an existing swimming pool on the site.

The council’s communications officer Nick White told the Sun in an email response to queries that the Brickendonbury site is within the green belt, surrounded by protected woodland. Some of the buildings are listed. As all these will need to be taken into account when planning application comes in, the council expect it will be a couple of months before a planning application is submitted.

In view of the stand taken by the East Herts Council, it is unlikely even if planning permission is approved, renovations can be completed by April. Continue reading “RM69 mil London Sports Centre – proof of shambolic Abdullah government?”

Posted on

Anti-corruption just a PR problem?

The Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department, Datuk Seri Nazri Aziz gave a very novel explanation about the anti-corruption campaign of the Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi — saying that the government had done a lot to fight corruption but such information was not properly channeled to the public.

Speaking at the World Ethics and Transparency Forum on Monday, Nazri said a public relations blitz to outline the national drive against corruption and the promotion of integrity is in the offing.

He said the government did not have a good public relations unit to counter criticisms that not enough was being done to stamp out corruption and improve integrity.

If Nazri is right, then the only problem of Abdullah’s anti-corruption campaign is one of P.R rather than one of lack of political will, but Nazri would belong to a very tiny number of people who would resort to such a novel way to wish away the grave problem of corruption in the country.

How will Nazri explain Malaysia’s plunge of seven places from 37th to 44th position in the last three years during the Abdullah premiership from 2003 to 2006 in the Transparency International (TI) Corruption Perception Index (CPI) when the five-year National Integrity Plan launched by Abdullah in April 2004 had targeted improvement to at least 30th position in 2008? Can this shocking plunge in Malaysia’s TI CPI to 44th position (when Malaysia was ranked No. 23 in 1995) be attributed to poor PR? Continue reading “Anti-corruption just a PR problem?”

Posted on

Happy Chinese New Year – Stand up for reforms

This should be a meaningful and historic Chinese New Year as it coincides with the 50th Merdeka Anniversary of the nation and possibly with the 12th general election.

Let all Malaysians stand up categorically in the next general election to be held in the next eight to 14 months for national reforms to make Malaysia a world-class competitive nation with the hallmarks of excellence, meritocracy, accountability, transparency, integrity, democracy and justice for all.

These were the hopes and expectations of Malaysians in the past three years since the March 2004 general election but they have not been fulfilled. In many important areas, there were not only no new starts, the country had gone backwards.

The world will pass Malaysia by if the country cannot find the political will to change course to create world-class institutions especially Parliament, judiciary, electoral system, local governance, civil service, police, anti-corruption agency and universities; inculcate among the government and people a first-class mentality and mindset and produce towering Malaysians and not just leading personalities of one race or community.

Wishing all Chinese Malaysians as well as all Malaysians a Happy Chinese New Year.

Posted on

Site Down

Dear Readers,

Very bad news.

The blog (blog.limkitsiang.com) has been down for three days.

We have just received the following message from our US host server:

“We regret to inform you that during the transfer to the new data centre your account was erased by the data centre before we had time to back it up, we apologies for the inconvenience and all attempts to recover the data was unsuccessful.”

IT Support is checking what is irretrievable. Thank you for your support and many apologies for the inconvenience.

16th February 2007 (1700 hours)

Happy Chinese New Year.

[Update 16th February 2007 (2100 hrs) – While recovery attempts are being made for the original blog.limkitsiang.com, we will start off with a new blogsite in the meanwhile. This new blogsite (english.limkitsiang.com) directly linked to the previous site is still being tested. – Kit]