He (of course) couldn't remember much about his piss-poor record as a PM on matters relating to FOREX, Project IC, Maminco, Memali, MAS, BMF, Perwaja so on so forth, but yet could about his minuscule role in public transportation, to wit, the MRT.
This is what Dr Kua Kia Soong has to say about him:
The Star) – Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad failed to implement an efficient and integrated public transport system due to his obsession with privatisation and the national car project, says Dr Kua Kia Soong.
The adviser to human rights group Suara Rakyat Malaysia (Suaram) said the former prime minister was not the “father of Malaysian public transport”, which is what his former critics turned allies now call him.
“Concerned Malaysian historians need to start telling it like it is,” he wrote in a piece titled Revisiting Mahathir’s flawed transport record, published on the Aliran portal on Wednesday.
“Allow me to remind the country of the litany of woes we have suffered under Dr Mahathir, especially the decades of traffic jams while fighting for a good public transport system in our country,” he added.
Dr Kua alleged that Dr Mahathir’s earliest “mega project”, the national car Proton, was promoted at the expense of public transport.
“The proportionately huge public development allocation for roads and highways paralleled the expenditure on the national car project,” he said.
He said this resulted in the number of registered vehicles in Kuala Lumpur more than doubling in seven years from 327,602 in 1985 to 662,717 in 1992.
He added that by 1998, there were 8.9 million motor vehicles on the roads, of which 4.5 million were motorcycles, 3.5 million were cars and the remainder were utility vehicles, trucks and buses.
Dr Kua, who was Petaling Jaya Utara MP from 1990 to 1995, also noted that Dr Mahathir launched his privatisation policy during the mid-1980s, when Malaysia was already in a recession.
Using the New Economic Policy, Dr Mahathir created more bumiputra trustee enterprises and agencies for his privatisation push.
“Many of the inside stories of the numerous contracts have been hidden from the public through the years, involving corruption and the lack of accountability, resulting in delays and inflated costs of these transport projects,” Dr Kua said.
Dr Kua questioned how the LRT (Light Rail Transit) project that was awarded to Sistem Transit Aliran Ringan (STAR) became “financeable” by the Employees Provident Fund (EPF) when the project had failed to get financing for seven years.
He also said the Kuala Lumpur Monorail service also had to be bailed out by government-owned Syarikat Prasarana Negara Bhd after it faced bankruptcy in 2004.
“The KL Monorail was not able to meet even half its ridership target of 85,000 passengers a day by 2003 because it was not conveniently linked to the other two mass transit systems, Putra and STAR,” he said.
Dr Kua also brought up the fact that the RM400mil Putrajaya monorail project by Mtrans Holdings Sdn Bhd was shelved in 2004.
Then there was the vision for an efficient public transport system that was first launched during a mid-term review of the Sixth Malaysia Plan in December 1993.
That aimed to merge bus companies in Kuala Lumpur by 1994.
Under the Seventh Malaysia Plan, the Government announced that bus services in the city would be operated by two consortiums, Intrakota Komposit Sdn Bhd and Park May Bhd.
Dr Kua however said that the “deterioration” in drivers’ attitudes and general bus services saw Intrakota accumulating losses of RM339mil.
“When the 21st century dawned, 13 bus companies in all were operating in the capital, and the bus service was as chaotic as ever,” he said.
“It is clear that Dr Mahathir failed to implement the necessary reforms for an integrated and efficient public transport system in the country,” he added.
The adviser to human rights group Suara Rakyat Malaysia (Suaram) said the former prime minister was not the “father of Malaysian public transport”, which is what his former critics turned allies now call him.
“Concerned Malaysian historians need to start telling it like it is,” he wrote in a piece titled Revisiting Mahathir’s flawed transport record, published on the Aliran portal on Wednesday.
“Allow me to remind the country of the litany of woes we have suffered under Dr Mahathir, especially the decades of traffic jams while fighting for a good public transport system in our country,” he added.
Dr Kua alleged that Dr Mahathir’s earliest “mega project”, the national car Proton, was promoted at the expense of public transport.
“The proportionately huge public development allocation for roads and highways paralleled the expenditure on the national car project,” he said.
He said this resulted in the number of registered vehicles in Kuala Lumpur more than doubling in seven years from 327,602 in 1985 to 662,717 in 1992.
He added that by 1998, there were 8.9 million motor vehicles on the roads, of which 4.5 million were motorcycles, 3.5 million were cars and the remainder were utility vehicles, trucks and buses.
Dr Kua, who was Petaling Jaya Utara MP from 1990 to 1995, also noted that Dr Mahathir launched his privatisation policy during the mid-1980s, when Malaysia was already in a recession.
Using the New Economic Policy, Dr Mahathir created more bumiputra trustee enterprises and agencies for his privatisation push.
“Many of the inside stories of the numerous contracts have been hidden from the public through the years, involving corruption and the lack of accountability, resulting in delays and inflated costs of these transport projects,” Dr Kua said.
Dr Kua questioned how the LRT (Light Rail Transit) project that was awarded to Sistem Transit Aliran Ringan (STAR) became “financeable” by the Employees Provident Fund (EPF) when the project had failed to get financing for seven years.
He also said the Kuala Lumpur Monorail service also had to be bailed out by government-owned Syarikat Prasarana Negara Bhd after it faced bankruptcy in 2004.
“The KL Monorail was not able to meet even half its ridership target of 85,000 passengers a day by 2003 because it was not conveniently linked to the other two mass transit systems, Putra and STAR,” he said.
Dr Kua also brought up the fact that the RM400mil Putrajaya monorail project by Mtrans Holdings Sdn Bhd was shelved in 2004.
Then there was the vision for an efficient public transport system that was first launched during a mid-term review of the Sixth Malaysia Plan in December 1993.
That aimed to merge bus companies in Kuala Lumpur by 1994.
Under the Seventh Malaysia Plan, the Government announced that bus services in the city would be operated by two consortiums, Intrakota Komposit Sdn Bhd and Park May Bhd.
Dr Kua however said that the “deterioration” in drivers’ attitudes and general bus services saw Intrakota accumulating losses of RM339mil.
“When the 21st century dawned, 13 bus companies in all were operating in the capital, and the bus service was as chaotic as ever,” he said.
“It is clear that Dr Mahathir failed to implement the necessary reforms for an integrated and efficient public transport system in the country,” he added.
ah, 2 dap traitor masturbating each other.
ReplyDelete"Dr Kua questioned how the LRT (Light Rail Transit) project that was awarded to Sistem Transit Aliran Ringan (STAR) became “financeable” by the Employees Provident Fund (EPF) when the project had failed to get financing for seven years."
ReplyDeleteNot correct.
I think STAR had about 9 shareholders; Shell Pension Fund, a Singapore Company (related to Temasik), a British Company (Taylor Woodrow), EPF, and 5 others were the investors. EPF equity was less than 20%.
Financing of about RM3.0 billion was via a syndicated loan, not from EPF. It was a first LRT BOOT project in the world. It failed because of low ridership. The feasibility study was too optimistic with a lot of assumptions not in placed.
The missing link was that there was no connectivity between STAR, PUTRA, MONORAIL and KTM Komuter.
Still, at RM3.0 billion then I think it was a good decision. The replacement cost today is perhaps more than RM20.0 billion.
Ktemoc appears to live in a strange universe of Alternative Facts.
DeleteOn the one hand he absolutely blames all the current ills of Malaysia on Mahathir and whitewashes the Current Incumbent as having limited capacity to alter the situation due to the far reaching and long-lasting actions of Mahathir.
On the other hand , he is too keen to dismiss Mahathir's essential contributions to the MRT, refusing to recognise the original LRT was in fact a far reaching and long-lasting project.
The fact is, the original Mahathir-era Putra LRT and STAR LRT lines still constitute the core backbone of the current MRT network, and still carry the highest proportion of the passenger traffic.
The new lines constructed under Najib add to the network, but it is dishonest for Najib (and Ktemoc) to attempt to erase Mahathir's essential contributions to laying the core of the system.
The privatised financing of the original project was flawed, and I said so at the time. There is no successful private Urban Mass Transit System in the world, and the KL system was not about to break the rule. The burden of servicing the loan repayments on the infrastructure is an impossible burden to lay on the operators of the system.
What HAS proven successful is where the Infrastructure is built from Public funds, as an essential civil project, but the operation of the system is turned over to a commercial entity that has to survive on profit and loss basis to ensure efficiency.
The lack of coordination between STAR and LRT lines was stupid , and many had said so. The original system had NO common stations between the two systems. The only places the two networks came close together, you actually had to cross the road, braving a pedestrian crossing, the dust, sun and rain to switch between the networks. It amounted to a disincentive to use the LRT.
But the original LRT system , the concrete, the tunnels, the rolling stock arose from Mahathir's initiative, and they can't be erased.
Najib may be attempting a Stalinist style "erasure" of recalcitrant leaders (in the USSR, they actually got air-brushed out of photographs), but there is no way to erase the concrete.
"Melayu mudah lupa" is commonly used by Mahathir,to describe Malays for conveniently forgetting things,for whatever purposes known to themselves.It could be lack of confidence or maybe out of respect for their leaders,not to quietly or openly speaking out.Mahathir just used a short sentence,like a big broom to make these mutes look stupid.
ReplyDeleteThere are many smart educated Malays,who can be good leaders for the country.But the dirty politics and free practice of corruption turned these professionals away.They prefer to work in the private sectors or start their own businesses,than work in the public sector because of politics been practiced openly in these gomen agencies.Many well educated Malays are now joining the migrant exodus.Many of them are now common sights in Kaytee's neighborhood,the land of the kangaroos.