Monorail, PORR and BN’s bye bye to Penang

Malaysiakini in a report“EPU: Penang monorail, Porr shelved” mentioned that:

Economic Planning Unit (EPU) of the Prime Minister’s Department today said that  the RM2 billion Penang Monorail and RM1.5 billion Penang Outer Ring Road have been shelved.

According to EPU director-general Dr Sulaiman Mahbob, projects that are not people-centred under the original Ninth Malaysia Plan (9MP) will be put on hold or deferred…………

…..Met later, Deputy Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak said the deferment of the two Penang mega-projects was not a punishment on Penangites who voted in the opposition-led state government

Penang is a small island which is heavily populated and the population is increasing. Because of the poor transport system within the island, there have been a tremendous growth of  motor vehicles clogging the road system, resulting in degradation of living environment and quality of life. Penang Island is badly in need of a good public transport system such as the monorail. To shelve it citing that this is not a people-centric project is like telling people that ‘chalk is black and charcoal is white’.

Monorail and PORR are projects that are desperately needed to improve traffic congestion and the mobility of the people , thereby improving the economic and investment climate of the Island. If these projects are not people centric, then I would like to ask what are the criteria to define whether a project is people centric? Does it mean that any project benefitting those who vote for opposition is not considered people centric?

Immediately after the General Election, I wrote a post ‘Do not punish the people and play with fire’ asking the government not to punish the people by withholding the projects. Later, when the leaders threatened to scrape the second Bridge project, I worte  another post ‘From Penang Bridge to PKFZ”, and I quote from part of that post:

……I suggest that Penang people ask the government to let them know how much income tax and road tax are collected from Penang residents alone annually. If the project takes 5 years to complete, then what is the total tax paid over 5 years? Ask the government to take a portion say 10 percent of these taxes to build . If government refuses, take the government to court as a first step. There would be more drastic steps, but first step first.

Another way is to ask those involved in the PKFZ thing to foot the bill for the second bridge. Afterall, the whole cost of the second bridge is smaller than the amount involved in the fiasco.

Penang people, with a higher income and more affluent than the national average , pay more taxes than many other states. I would like to ask the Finance Minister to reveal how much Penang people contribute by way of tax to the national coffer, and how much of this contribution were actually spent on Penang itself?

Now, by shelving the Monorail and PORR projects, Penang people will doubtlessly suffer. There will be more traffic congestion and environmental pollution as well as more time consumed in travelling from one place to another. Quality of life will deteriorate, no doubt.

But as a former Penangite, with still a wide network of classmates, friends and relatives in Penang, I can tell you that Penang people will be more determined to vote against BN and UMNO, and they will be more determined to vote the BN out of Federal government the next round. Do not forget, Penangites’ influences are not confined to Penang itself. There are many former Penangites residing in KL and other Urban centres in West Malaysia. These people will never vote BN again and would campaign hard to convince others to change the Federal government.

Parti Gerakan, with its home base in Penang, will be hard hit by this, if they still cling on to UMNO and BN. Many Gerakan leaders thought this election is a fluke and people would vote them back again. With this announcement, Gerakan can say goodbye to recapturing the State.

PORR, courtesy of Malaysiakini.