A group of youths gathered at the Setia Indah Recreational Park in Johor Bahru recently to express their protestations against the Warisan Merdeka tower in an unique way- by eating breads and drinking no water.
Organised by the Democratic Action Party Socialist Youth (DAPSY) of South Johor on Sunday, the event saw the participants eating loafs of bread without drinking water- in a symbolic rejection of Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak’s proposed 100-storey tower, which is estimated to cost RM5 billion.
“We want to demonstrate that the building of this tower is depriving people of money, which we are likening to drinking water,” said DAPSY Youth Leader of Gelang Patah, Chen Kah Eng.
“We don’t want a tower to be built just to cater political agendas of a particular politician. We want things to be built according to the needs of the people,” he further stressed.
The participants arranged a ‘bread tower’, in an outlook similar to that of the Warisan Merdeka tower, before eating the bread.
The act was also a sign of protest against the rising water prices in the state of Johor.
“It is public knowledge that the water rates in Johor are the highest in Malaysia. The government doesn’t seem to care about the basic necessities of the common people,” said Johor PKR’s Local Government Bureau Head Tan Yeng Ming.
Pasir Gudang PAS Committee Member Mohd Nasir likened to the situation of the Johor people to that of a ‘sugar cane which is already extracted of all its juices, and is yet still being extracted.’
“We don’t have much left, we are running dry,” he said.
The Johor Water Commission recently increased water tariffs in Johor, and along with the nationwide price hikes of sugar and oil, has left the Johor folks voicing their discontent.
Along with Sabah and Labuan, Johor has the joint-highest water tariffs in the whole of Malaysia.
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Jimmy Tan
