the speakers l to r: choo choon kai (suaram), YB chow kon yeow (PR), the moderator, lim kah cheng (councillor), teh leong meng (gerakan)
i attended the suaram forum ‘CAT ruling: change or same?’ as announced in my mental jog blog. i was late… arrived about 8.30 of which when i walked in the 3rd speaker was just about to finish (there were 4 speakers).
my friend, christina reserved a seat for me next to her and she was seated right in front! alamak! i walked in and all eyes were on me. anyway there were quite a number of empty seats. the room (2nd floor) was big but there were not too many people… maybe about 50. nevertheless, it was an interesting forum with lively debate from the speakers and the floor. i did not take down notes but let’s see what i remember here and there.
the 4 speakers were mr choo chon kai from suaram, ms im kah cheng, councillor, YB chow kon yeow, who is the state local government, traffic management and environment committee chairmanand mr teh leong meng from gerakan. it was a pleasant surprise to not the presence of an opposition member – mr teh from gerakan.
well, when i walked in, mr teh was speaking. i heard something “the CAT government not living up to its promise…” blah blah. sitting down for just 5 mins, his speech ended! pity i missed his speech as i’m sure he had a lot of criticisms of the present penang government, label the ‘CAT government’. never mind, there were still summing up time and Q&A.
chon kai was next to speak, then followed by the speakers’ response to each other. by far, i notice kah cheng was the best speaker. she, being a councillor of course talked a lot about the council and local elections. yes, local elections, hills development, transport and the PGCC seemed to dominate the forum. ms lim was loud, clear and profilic.
i remember vividly the one thing that stand out of what kah cheng said was when she said “the best thing about the new government is that it is now no longer umno-nised.” and everybody clapped and cheered in agreement!
when mr teh brought up the issue of the PGCC, saying that it was wrong for people to say that the PGCC is a scam, oh boy, he recieved lots of feedback from the floor. he insisted PGCC is not a scam because it had never been approved by the council. he said (he thought so!) not many people know that PGCC had not been approved by the council… if it was not approved, how can it be a scam?
kah cheng insisted it was a scam and gave some views which i had forgotten but i remember an audience from the floor commented that how come the PM launched PGCC if it was not approved. ya sound silly… but mr teh said that it was only a soft launch. what ler soft launch… launch is launch lah.
when talking about public transport, rapid penang was brought up and YB chow reminded the people that rapid penang is under the federal government and i remember him mentioning “we are held to ransom by rapid penang”. hmm…. interesting remark.
mr teh from gerakan also brought up an interesting remark regarding the CM… dunno true or not. he said the CM awarded tender to a company with high cost, then later he took back the tender from that company and gave it to his own crony company with less cost, and he announced “oh, see, i managed to get the tender at low cost. lower than the first”. in actual fact he (CM) already wanted to give the tender to the 2nd low cost company but he pretend to first gave it to another higher cost company. er… i hope i’m right.
there was a summing up by all the 4 speakers before the discussion was thrown to the floor. i only remember clearly choon kai’s summing up where he was quite passionate shouting that whatever projects to be done must be done with the interest of the public in mind, not with the interest of profit. “public interest, not profit interest” he keep on repeating a few times.
seemed that many on the floor were hitting out at mr teh, being the ‘past government who didn’t do anything’. until the end, one man stood up to say it was not fair to attack mr teh. he said “you already rejected him (gerakan). you don’t want him (gerakan). he has no issue with you now. why are you attacking him?”. haha. a few giggled uncomfortably while mr teh was jubilant, raising both his hands up and saying “thank you, thank you” to the man.
there were a lot of questions from the floor. in fact too many that many people had to be turned down as it was past their scheduled time. in fact when i left at 10.30pm the forum was still going on. think it was about to end in 5 or 10 mins but i had to leave as my friend was already at the venue to pick me up for our ’street walk’ (walking the road looking for the homeless people) a project with my fellow CJ mates, also with a staff of malaysiakini who did the video (i interviewed one indian homeless man in bahasa). hope to see that video up in malaysiakini soon.
ok since my report is half-past six, i’ll copy here a report from someone who were there at the forum and who sent the report to our bangsa malaysia penang egroup. very good detailed report.
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Suaram organised a forum entitled “CAT Ruling: Change or the Same?” at the PCTH on Sat Mar 14. The panelists were Choo Chong Kai (Suaram), YB Chow Kon Yeow (DAP), Lim Kah Cheng (MPPP councillor representing NGO) and Teh Leong Meng (Gerakan). Below are the take-aways from the forum:
- On PORR, PGCC and land scams: Teh objected strongly to the word “land scam” regarding PGCC as he said there was no evidence of corruption and the PGCC was not even approved by MPPP at that time. This raised several comments from the floor. One speaker said that Equine benefitted from the reconversion of the turf club land. Another commented that PM Badawi officiated the official launch thereby giving the impression that the project had the blessings of Federal. Another asked why wasn’t Badawi informed by the previous state Govt that the project had not been approved. Teh said that Badawi was invited to officiate the soft launch of the project as a marketting and publicity event only and that the then MPPP had put the plans on-hold (subject to changes) and never rejected the plans outright. YB Kon Yeow was asked for his stand on the PORR. He said that he will support PORR only on 2 conditions: that it will be toll free and that an independent
third party study be conducted on its sustainable viability.
- On Penang’s public transportation plan: YB Kon Yeow said that the state still needs RapidPenang as the sole public transport provider. This is because transport is under the purview of Federal. The State is still beholden to Federal on all matters relating to transport eg. approval of routes and licensing. It is under the Ministry of Entrepreneurship. YB Kon Yeow explained that RapidKL (under Khazanah) can pull back RapidPenang services anytime and this will leave Penang on the lurch. He said that the State is still pursueing ways and means to set up a second/back-up transport service despite facing many obstacles from Federal. Teh raised the issue of media reports that the State is delaying approval of new depot sites for the 200 RapidPenang buses and the company is threatening to pull back the buses back to KL. YB Kon Yeow explained that RapidPenang still owes the State millions of dollars from overdue rentals of the depot sites since July
2007. He also rebutted claims that the RM150,000 rental is too high as the rental was fixed by the previous administration. YB Kon Yeow said that RapidKL has threatened to witdraw their services several times. However, YB Kon Yeow assured that the State will continue to work with RapidPenang as best it can as it still needs their services.
- On traffic congestion: Several speakers from the floor raised that traffic congestion on the island is getting worst. Most of the congestions are caused by illegal parking and illegal hawking on the streets. Councillor Kah Cheng lamented that there is not enough will by the State to resolve this issue. There are some political interferences by certain politicians and their aides to hinder enforcement. She brought up several cases where she herself was “kicked” from one department to another and the issues remained unresolved after many months. Another example was the illegal hawkers outside the GH which obstructed Rapid buses from stopping there and even ambulances from going in and out. There is too much “tai chi” going on to get things done.
- On Local Elections: This issue was hotly discussed as this was in the Pakatan’s Mar 08 Penang’s manisfesto. YB Kon Yeow explained that the State Govt has it’s hands tied as local Govt elections are bounded by the Local Govt Act. He also explained that there are currently 4 representatives from NGO’s (2 from the chambers of commerce and 2 from civil societies) in the council. He said that the appointed councillors from political parties are by default elected as their parties are elected by the voters. Chong Kai disagreed and said that the State Govt is not creative and has not tried enough. Perak has started elections of its village heads. Councillor Kah Cheng added that while she fully supports election of local councillors, she is sceptical that it will make any difference to improve CAT unless there is a major systemic change in the administration. She added that as a councillor, she is already getting “kicked” around to try to get things done.
What can a new set of councillors do if the system still remains the same? YB Kon Yeow agreed to continue to pursue this issue further. Several speakers asked for a roadmap on this.
- On the Hill Railway cable repair: Teh raised the issue that CM Guan Eng violated his own CAT initiatives by awarding the contract to a local contractor who did not bid for this job. This job was also awarded to this contractor using a lower specs. YB Chow explained that the CM’s only intent was to save the State nearly RM800K (difference in quote from the lowest bid) and also to save time in going through another retender process. A floor speaker cautioned that this should not be allowed as a precedent for the CM to have sole authority in awarding or cancelling a tender process.
- On Penang’s Structure and Local Plan: Councillor Kah Cheng lamented that the 2005 Penang Structure Plan and Local Plan has still not been gazetted. She said that the State has not shown any urgency or will to get this done. The Local Plan has a direct impact on our lives and our neighbourhood. Without a review and gazetting of the Local Plan, anything can be build or any land can be regazetted in our neighbourhood. She brought up the case of Bukit Gambier where a hillslope development was recently approved without public consultation. Kah Cheng also brought up her concern of seeing early signs of pushing approvals through. She calls for more public discussion and engagement on all major projects. Several speakers reminded this administration not to repeat the mistakes of the previous administration which approved the hillslope projects in Tg Bungah and Batu Ferringhi. Investor friendliness should not rule over civil society.
Overall comment: The discourse was active and lively. Several speakers from the floor spoke passionately. One speaker pleaded to Gerakan to work with Pakatan for the better good of Penang and the nation. The general feeling was the State has not engaged the public enough on major policy matters. One speaker said that this Pakatan administration has only been in office for a year and we should allow them a bit more time. This is a fair statement and many people can empathise the uphill battles Pakatan is facing with Federal. However many voters who voted for this Pakatan Govt feel that they are seeing more of the same. There is still too much NIH (Not-Invented-Here) syndrome and too much lethargy in the local authorities and some politicians. There needs to be a major paradigm change in these areas quickly to remove this perception.
By SH Tan (Observer)
UPDATED: this post was picked up the chinese online media, penang media and posted at its website.
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