Another wall, another contract in grifter Malaysia

Murray Hunter


Another wall, another contract in grifter Malaysia

Kelantan proposes erecting 100km border wall

Nov 16, 2024




This is what is wanted along the Golok River.



The state of Kelantan, opposite Narathiwat province in Thailand is proposing to build a 100km border wall to crack-down on cross border criminal activity and smuggling.

The deputy chief minister Mohomed Fadzli Hassan announced the state is seeking approval from Putra Jaya to build the wall, which is claimed would prevent flooding as well. Sources indicate that the police, which is a federal agency is promoting the idea to the Kelantan government.

A great proportion of the border between Kelantan and Narathiwat has the Golok River as a natural border. There are small towns on both sides of the river that have been integrated through trade and family connections for hundreds of years. The Royal Thai Army has built a partial wall in Sungai Golok town, where the town of Rantau Panjang is on the other side. The wall is spasmodically manned by the army and para-military on the Sungai Golok side, primarily to keep a check on security. Insurgents have used Rantau Panjang as a ‘safety abode’ where terror acts and bombings are planned and executed from. Many Thais involved have dual documents of both Malaysia and Thailand.

Undocumented travel from Thailand to Malaysia at these points have been allowed for decades and still continue. The unwritten rule is those who cross the border without documents should be locals.

Contracts for Grifters

Any border wall along the Kelantan wall with Narathiwat will not necessarily act as a defence against flooding. Its true within the immediate areas of Rantau Panjang, the area floods when the river overflows. However, in other areas, water flows naturally into Sungai Golok during heavy rains, and acts as a natural drain. A wall will destroy this natural drainage eco-system and actually cause more floods in specific locations.

As Thailand’s minimum salary is higher than Malaysia, few Thais go to Malaysia in search of work these days. This is very different from a few decades ago, when Thailand had a much higher poverty rate. In addition, with the elimination of subsidies on diesel already in place, much less fuel is smuggled across to Thailand than before. This will also happen with petrol when subsidies are eased in the very near future.

The major smuggling item is Thai rice into Malaysia. Rice is not allowed to be imported into Malaysia to protect the private Bernas monopoly. So, the border would effectively just be protecting a private rice monopoly in Malaysia.

The cost of building around 100km of wall will cost hundreds of million Ringgit. This is a lucrative contract for the grifters hanging around the finance ministry. At best such a contract could be divided into parcels, so small class F contractors could get work in Kelantan (there isn’t much work around for them). No doubt, the Putra Jaya chieftains will hijack the idea and the EPU will put this project down in the coming Malaysia Plan. Some grifter will get it.

Such as scheme was undertaken in Perlis/Kedah back in the early 1990s. The idea was floated to build a fence between Perlis/Kedah in Malaysia and Songkhla province in Thailand. At the time it was worth a lot of money, and one doesn’t have to think to hard who got the contract to build it. The fence is just full of holes and ceded land to Thailand unnecessarily.