Did Pak Lah drain Petronas?

Well if you read Mahathir’s post titled Where has the money gone to he makes a pretty compelling case that a lot of Petronas money did flow out during Pak Lah’s tenure.

Anyway a sumarry of the math is as follows.

Between 1976 and 2009 (current year) Petronas paid to the Government of Malaysia a total of RM426 billion. On  a simple average basis that works out to  RM 12.5 billion a year.

BUT, if we take 1976 – 2002 as Mahathir’s period, in that time Petronas paid out a total of Rm157.4 billion or  37% of the total payout, averaging RM5.8 billion a year.

In contrast, if we take 2003 – 2009 as Pak Lah’s period, Petronas paid out a total of RM 269.2 billion or 63% of Petronas total payout, averaging RM34.86 billion a year.

For Tun M, mentally I can account for where the money went – KLCC, Putrajaya, PKFZ, MAS (Tajuddin) etc. but for Pak Lah its quite hard to see where the money has gone asides form his brand new AIRBUS.  Surely we should be putting pressure on the PAC to see where all the money has gone.

Remember the oil spike last year and how the government pushed pump prices up.  Well I guess with all the money taken out from Petronas, there was none left to subsidize the petrol.

The next is to see what happened to Felda’s money….another super cash rich company that is now negative cash.

Pak Lah on a slippery slope

And now, the end is near;
And so I face the final curtain.
My friend, Ill say it clear,
Ill state my case, of which Im certain….

It is my view that Pak Lah and UMNO has broken the proverbial camels back with the ISA arrest of Teresa Kok  and Reporter Tan Hoon Cheng. Playing this racial card has back fired badly on Pak Lah, on UMNO and the Cabinet.  Zaid Ibrahim has done the right thing again by resigning from his post of law minister:

 

Monday September 15, 2008 MYT 9:21:19 PM

Zaid Ibrahim: Resignation rejected (final update)

By SHAILA KOSHY

KUALA LUMPUR: Senator Datuk Zaid Ibrahim, who submitted a letter resigning as Minister, did not want to be a liability to Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi in Umno. 

He expressed this concern Monday in his letter of resignation, saying his views were often at odds with the those of the administration.

Abdullah confirmed in Terengganu last night that he had received the letter, rejected it and told Zaid to take off work for two weeks.

Add this the questioning of the power transition plan by both Muhyiddin Yasin and Najib

2008/09/15

Perlis Umno wants power transition between Abdullah and Najib be determined by party divisions

BERNAMA

KANGAR, MON:

The Perlis Umno Liaison Committee has agreed that the power transition between Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi and Datuk Seri Najib Razak be determined by the party divisions to reflect the voice of the majority.

Its deputy chairman, Datuk Zahidi Zainul Abidi, said the succession plan should not be bound by the party supreme council’s decision.

Under the transition plan, Abdullah is to hand over the posts of prime minister, Barisan Nasional chairman and Umno president to his deputy, Najib in June 2010.

However, Najib had said that the transition plan should be determined by the Umno divisional delegates meetings, while party vice-president Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin felt that the time frame was too long.

Zahidi said Umno had to restore its strength to earn the respect of the people.

 

How much worse can it get for Pak Lah? Within Barisan’s component parties,  MCA has finally found its voice to critics the ISA actions, Gerakkan actually came out in support of Anwar in Permatang Pauh….

UMNO has lost its trump card – the race card and with that Pak Lah and his team of advisors & medicine men etc. will literally have to hope for a miracle to happen – like an absolute collapse of the economy and the  ringgit – a crisis so big that it shifts everyones attention away from politics. For now its all too late.

 

Anwar on the other hand must surely smell blood and sense that victory is in the air. To rub salt into the wound, Anwar at this moment can literarily get UMNO out of BN and replace it with PKR….! Believe it, or not?

 

 

 

Will Terengganu seal Pak Lah’s fate

The current events in Terengganu I believe will be the straw that breaks Pak Lah’s back and rule.  After everything that has happend, Pak Lah shoudl have quickly stood up to show that he is the PM for the People of Malaysia and not the PM for UMNO.

The last few weeks have seen him  distance himself further from  the people of the country and  project his position as PM as being there only for UMNO.

The events in Terengganu is going to truly seal Pak Lah’s  fate, I think.

It is obvious that the Palace is not happy with the affairs and the running of the state which is why Idris Juoh has been rejected as MB. The Palace is keep to appoint Datuk Ahmad Said as MB but for UMNO to sack him from UMNO, which in essence stops him from becoming MB shows that UMNO puts its interest clearly ahead of the people of the state.

There can be no winner in this. I can’t see the Sultan of Terengganu, having  made a choice of Datuk Ahmad Said, only to see him being kicked out of UMNO backing down. And I cant see Pak Lah going to his boys in UMNO to back down.

The biggest risk right now is for Terengganu to go to stale mate and a fresh elections be called of which I will guarantee that  BN will be trashed, meaning that the oposition will now have colllected 6 + 1 states.

As far as Peninsular Malaysia   goes, the “opposition will be in control of 6 out of 11 states!” and that surely cannot bode well for BN.

The real question to be asked is why is Pak Lah being so hard headed. After all the same happened in Perlis and  Shahidan Kassim was quietly packed off.

Is it because of the fact that Terengganu is the oil producing state of Malaysia? Is it because of  Patrick Badawi who is purported to be in control of the oil money?  What can it be?

Just as we could not fathom the consequences of the World Trade Center falling down in 9/11, likewise it will be a while before we fathom the significance of GE12.

All in all, I must say thank you and good bye to Pak Lah.

Shuffling Deck Chairs – aftermath of the Elections Tsunami

Here are some of the commentaries from the The Economist on Pak Lah’s new Cabinet.

Shuffling deckchairs

The prime minister fights for survival

TEN days after suffering heavy losses in a general election, Malaysia’s prime minister, Abdullah Badawi, shuffled his cabinet on March 18th, hoping to stave off calls for his resignation from within his party, the United Malays National Organisation (UMNO). The removal of some scandal-tainted ministers and the elevation of a judicial reformer showed he is at least trying to get to grips with his problems. But Mr Badawi still seems to be shuffling deckchairs on a personal Titanic.

…the knives may come out at the party’s annual congress in August.

So Mr Badawi’s survival rests on how his new ministerial line-up is received and how well it performs. His first change was to cut the cabinet list from a bloated 90 to a still excessive 68, merging several ministries…..

The most notable sacking was that of Rafidah Aziz, believed to be the world’s longest-serving trade minister, with over 20 years in the job…..The most noticeable absence was Khairy Jamaluddin, Mr Badawi’s ambitious (and disliked) son-in-law, who might have expected a post after winning his seat (he was also once an intern at The Economist).

…One disclosure statement likely to be perused closely will be that of Muhammad Taib, one of the cabinet’s not-so-new “new faces”. He resigned as chief minister of Selangor state in 1997, after being arrested at Brisbane airport in Australia for failing to declare a suitcase of money he had with him. Both the Australian and Malaysian courts acquitted him, but he was an odd choice for a prime minister seeking to project a cleaner image.

The bells are tolling for Pak Lah …

My earlier blog was titled Pak Lah – Seize the Day and in it I outlined Pak Lah’s political challenges and what he potentially can do to go from zero to hero. In that piece I ignored to comment on his choice for cabinet as I figured that he would do only one of two things:

1. Stick to the tried and true to consolidate his power base ahead of the UMNO general assembly.

2. To make drastic revamp to his cabinet as a signal of change to the country at large.

In the end he has made the fatal choice of taking the middle ground. In a way it is so Pak Lah….

Amir Sham and Zaid Ibrahim are clearly choices that resonate well with the public as they are seen as credible and capable.

UNFORTUNATELY he has kept Nazri Aziz, Muhammad Taib and to a smaller extent Zahid Hamidi and this is really to help him keep UMNO in check. Nazri and Muhammad Taib, to me are the ICONS of what is wrong with UMNO and all Pak Lah has done is open up very old wounds.

His choice has now exposed him both ways. The more Muhammad Taib opens his mouth, the more the voters are going to feel justified in voting in “Barisan Rakyaat.” Nazri doesn’t even have to open his mouth….

The fact that the Youth Wing let Mukhriz off the hook for asking Pak Lah to resign is a huge contrast to their posture at the last General Assembly when Mukhirz was chastised for calling Pak Lah boring (here).

Ku Li has now stepped up to offer himself for the post of Party President….

Anwar Ibrahim, true to himself, smells the blood in the water and is circling.

What is worse is that unlike previous years where the party leadership would whack members into submission, this time the balance of power is in the hands of members. All it takes is for 2 or 3 MP’s to walk out and join the Opposition and Pak Lah will truly be history.

This is not an impossible scenario as the people of Sabah went through this fate in 1994. Sometimes what goes around, comes around!

PBS Sabah

In February 1994 PBS faced the general election with unprecedented pressure from the Barisan Nasional, largely because of the party’s sudden exit from the national coalition four years earlier. Despite the presence of phantom voters PBS still won the elections for the fourth successive time but with a reduced majority, i.e. 25 seats as against the Barisan Nasional’s 23 seats. Datuk Seri Panglima Pairin had to wait for more than 36 hours outside the palace (Istana) gate before he was sworn in as the Chief Minister because of manouvering by Barisan Nasional leaders who could not accept the people’s democratic verdict.

The fourth-term PBS government lasted only about two weeks before it was forced out of power through undemocratic manouverings by the Barisan Nasional. The resignation was caused by defections of a majority of PBS Assemblymen to Barisan Nasional parties. Some of the former PBS leaders also formed their own political parties.

Having lost the majority in the State Assembly, Datuk Seri Panglima Pairin resigned as Chief Minister on 17 March 1994 before a shocked Malaysian public. It was unbelievable that a case of a democratically elected government losing power within days after a general election due to party hopping by dishonourable Assemblyman was happening for the first time on Malaysian soil.

UMNO members are now going to fragment into camps and start hedging their bets, and it is hard to envision people lining up behind Pak Lah. It is going to be near impossible for Pak Lah to pull this off. Of course Rosmah Najib will now be rubbing his hands in anticipation…and even that I wouldn’t be too sure at this moment.

I think this chapter is about to come to a close. The balance of power has shifted too far to the left and unless Pak Lah’s secret middle name is Houdini, we will have to say good bye to him.

For me what is most amazing of this entire saga is that the real protagonist of this drama is a young oxford graduate called Khairi who had a vision so far and an ambition so big that he blinded his father in law from reality. As I said in an earlier post… for whatever its worth, the “Opposition” must thank Khairi for gifting to them this elections.

And finally, lets be reminded of what Azman Mokhtar said:

Khazanah

“YOU either execute or get executed,” says Azman Mokhtar, of his mission to overhaul Malaysia’s 40-odd partially state-owned firms.”

I wonder if Azman will remind the CEO of the country the same….?

Pak Lah – Seize the Day

After a week of watching the aftermath of the election tsunami and celebrating the  feeling of being liberated from the tyranny of a single party system, In ow put myself in Pak Lah shoes and ask myself, if I were in his position, what will I be doing?

My reality is that:

• My party senses I am weak and will be after my blood. If not now then it will come at UMNO general assembly later this year. (S**T , why did I postpone it last year?)

• Anwar Ibrahim will surely be sharpening his sword to go after me either by becoming PM via UMNO or the BR alliance get stronger and by next elections wins majority

• Sabah and Sarawak have me by the jugular – not for them we would have been wiped – GOD forbid they pull the cessation trick now

• The rakyat in general are feeling so upbeat about BN’s whitewash – even the Malays.

• I am going to get crucified when I table this year’s budget to Parliament…..

So, really what should I do?

As I ponder my future as PM which may end as soon as this UMNO GA or certainly at some point in the next 5 years I am down to two options:

1. The easy option is to cower down and at the right time leave office. Of course they will give me some honorary recognition “Pak Lah, father of…) as they have done for every PM. But deep in my heart I know it will really be “Pak Lah, Bapa Kejatuhan BN” or “Pak Lah the Father of BN’s downfall.”
2. Then there is the hard option – and if I pulled it off I will be remembered as “Bapa Perpaduan” or something dignified like that. Here is what I will have to do:

I fully recognized that both BN/UMNO and the country need serious reforms. What has always held us back is the lack of political will. Right now everything is so fragmented that it will be hard to fight against some real and popular reform themes.

1. Introduce a 2 term limit for the PM’s job, for UMNO party president’s job and for state MB’s. Minsters will be limited to 2 consecutive terms.

Politically : The introduction of this ONE reform will resonate so strongly with the rakyaat that any attempts to kick me out either by UMNO, NAJI or DSAi will be rejected by the citizens as a whole. And by definition, if this amendment is passed, I will have to step down at the end of my second term (2012) and hence the pressure to kick me out now will subside.

This is such an important reform as it stops empires from begin built, gets rid of complacency but most importantly put succession planning on the agenda.

Of course some my party members will hate it as it is such a dramatic change but really it will motivate a huge number of other party members as it opens up opportunity for them to rise up.

2. Kick out crony ism, patronage and nepotism and institute a process of meritocracy in the political parties and government service.

This will be another huge reform that the general population will embrace. Sure a lot of “privileged ” people will hate it, but it is because of these “privileged” people we got trashed in 080308.

Also it will make the party more accessible and approachable to the man on the street. And in the administration of the government, it wil allow the best staff to rise up irrespectiv of race. Whic in returm means that the Malay’s will ahve to really push themselves or get left out.

3. Start an active talent search and succession planning process.

Right now I feel so stupid for having to make a constitutional amendment just to extend Rashid the EC chairman retirement. A constitutional Amendment is notjoke and we did it for such a frivilous matter. To think that the day Rashid was born, we knew the exact time and date he would turn 55 and we failed to plan for that. 55 years of advance notice and we couldn’t even get it right.

With the first and second reforms in place, the third wil be easier to do. Moreover, all teh other parties will be out there grabbing talent as they know GE 13 in 4 years and 347 day time the votes will vote for people who are capable.

4. Go after the corrupt.

What do I have to loose? Before this I was fairly reluctant to go full steam after the corrupt, because of not wanting to open a tin of worms. But now that SAMY is out with a few other, I might as well finish where the voters left off. We spend 50 years trying to hold the party together by closing one eye in many cases, and yet we got trashed. So we might as well do what is right for the people and give them a sense fo justice.

Of my head this would be the big 4 I would go for and I would announce it very quickly and then put massive effort into it. It will be hell trying to push it through, but these are reforms that everyone will agree to accept the minority who currently benefit from it.

In one stroke, Anwar will be silenced and made irrelevant as his will have no more platform to stand on, UMNO will be under pressure from the grass roots to support me and the reforms. And truly, the country will benefit significantly from it.

If I try to think what my late parents would expect of me, I am sure it will be those four.

The only question have to ask is if I really have the vision , stamina and perseverance to see this 4 major reforms in over the next few years?

You tell me!

Stop over reading into the election results

One of the biggest problems when an unpredicted event happens is that we quickly try to find a reason to explain it. The human mind is always looking to put a rational to everything . For more you can read this article at MindSpring – Mental traps and why there is no blue ocean.

The reality is that we are over analyzing. For those who lost – its to find out why they lost and for those who won its to know what happened. Where did the tsunami come from.

To understand what happened, one must refer to the work by Malcom Gladwell – Tipping point. I wrote this quite a while back

One of the good books on the market to day is titled TIPPING POINT by Malcom Gladwell. It is a go0d book to read if we want to understand why some trends and fads catch on and die but some just grow and grow.

The word “Tipping Point”, for example, comes from the world of epidemiology. It’s the name given to that moment in an epidemic when a virus reaches critical mass. It’s the boiling point. It’s the moment on the graph when the line starts to shoot straight upwards.

I highly suspect that in MALAYSIA, blogging is about to hit its tipping point. Some times when we do things where we expect a certain outcome, we end up getting the reverse. In management we call it unintended consequences and what I am noticing is that the more “coercion” there is on bloggers … the more people start blogging. And there are 2 aspects to blogging: those who comment and those who graduate from commenting to starting up their own blogs.

(I got the end of the article wrong, I said bloggers would not have much impact on this elections but the next…obviously bloggers played a key role in this election)

Lets deal with this one by one:

Assertion No 1: Anwar Ibrahim is back.

Actually Anwar is far from back. Anwar is being Anwar – capitalizing on opportunity, It is what he has been good at and it is what he will continue to be good at. This was not a planned win. No one even dreamed that this was going to happen, certainly not Anwar Ibrahim.

Assertion No 2: People voted the opposition in.

This is really splitting hairs but it makes a world of difference – PEOPLE VOTE BN OUT. It is not the same as voting the opposition in. All the people I spoke too have said the same thing “I just wanted BN out to teach them a lesson.”

Assertion no 3: This was a planned event

I think that this was not a “Planned Event” People went out to see change at the grass roots level. Just ask, why did all the Bloggers win? Who are these bloggers? Well its because bloggers have been the “voice of truth” in terms of giving people alternative views to the mainstream media and all bloggers maintained “a freedom to comment and to be heard” policy on their blogs. I can tell you, not all bloggers are saints but they were certainty better perceived then the devil.

Assertion no 4: Its Pak Lah’s fault.

Yes its his fault and his fault for giving Khairy such a free hand. But Pak Lah and Khairy are not the root cause of the problem. It was Tun M. everything that has happened today, the seeds were planted many years ago and I am almost certain if Tun M was in power, the result would have been just as bad if not worse.

So lets take this historical moment for what it is. Malaysian have grown up and grown tired of BN rhetoric. All the corridors being build but Jalan Kepong still floods! All the voter want are elected reps who work for the citizens and not the arrogance of people like Nazri Aziz and co.

The good news is that now both BN and BR have to work hard – really hard if they want to win GE13, and that can only be good news for the citizens. We finally see the true power of the ballot box!

So Pak Lah, where does the buck stop?

At some point the the buck must stop somewhere. Its called accountability.  While it is easy to blame other of failure, the reality is he was in the top job, he was give the opportunity and he squandered it.

An elected leader has to choose between popular choices and the right choices.  When Pak Lah took over he knew what the right choices were – get rid of corruption, stop nepotism & cronyism, no more megalomania, fix health and education. In 2002,  the rakyaat gave him an unprecedented mandate to do it.

He chose not to  and he should now take accountability for it.   BN was punished for betraying the trust and mandate given by the raykaat!

Interestingly Koh Tsu Koon, representing the most progressive race in this country – the Chinese had done the right thing.

Samy Vellu has just seen MIC decimated to smithereens  and he himself been  rejected by his constituency, and yet he still want to hold on!    Not surprising the Indians feel that they are the most backwards economic group.

Then there is Pak Lah.  This is not about Pak Lah the head of UMNO but Pak Lah the PM.

Pak Lah who is the proxy for the nation as the PM and head of Barisan Nasional went from the largest mandate ever received by BN and within 3.5 years absolutely destroyed that mandate – 5 states gone to the opposition – Kedah, Kelantan, Perak, Penang, Selangor. BN remains in power by a sheer simple majority.

Pak Lah can rightfully say UMNO still supports him and he can continue to lead UMNO, after all  his family members won their respective constituencies showing that UMNO is still behind his family.  But as PM I beg to defer.

Malaysian Elections – So what went wrong?

How can a Government, after telling all its citizens of the wonderful things it has done in the last 3 years and previous 47 years and all the good things it will do after the elections, loose so badly in an election.

Of course any answer is mere speculation and unless we are able to interview and ask each voter what made him of her vote in a certain way its hard to get to the facts.But that is not the fun way to do this.

So let me look at some of the more non-obvious probable factors although this is pure conjecture..

1. As much as Khazanah was giving fantastic reports on the performance of the GLC’s , the GLC employess per say were less than pleased with Khazanah and its ways. So that can easily account for a few hundred thousand votes.

Example: think of all the Maybank employees who are heart broken to hear that Amirsham is retiring and an outsider – Wahid from TM is coming in. All it means is that MAYBANK has failed to groom its leaders and with Wahid coming in there will be a natural expectation of job losses and insecurity. (extend the same logic to synergy drive, etc)

2. Those in UMNO and long standing UNMO supporters who voted against their party (blasphemous isn’t it). Why would they do it. Well the long held belief about Malays is that they have the PHD syndrome – Persaan Hasad dengki – or supreme jealousy and why not… someone capable like NurJazlan Mohamed who has patiently worked his way up the ranks of UMNO cultivated relationships etc has to put up with Khairi who walks in uncontested into the number 2 youth job all in a matter of a few years.

3 . The folks who were affected by the tsunami and saw how promised aid not get to them. Or worse still see their suffering friends denied help because they had different political beliefs. Maybe they said, the government is there to help everyone, not use tax payers money as ransom to only help those with a certain political belief. Thats down right blackmail.

4. Then there are those who have been seeking redress in court and have had to put up with years for delays and suffrage only to then watch the whole VK Lingam episode. So much for a free judiciary. The horror of finding out the legal system is “worked” by a privileged few.

5 . Then there are those (a big portion) of urbanites who just don’t feel safe anymore- at home, in the street because of kids getting murdered, snatch thieves but worst of all are the mat rempit menace. And mat Rempits, the one  group that we despise, is the one group Khairy decides to hero worship, making them UMNO ambassadors. Yes Khairy, we saw them in action a the polling stations..bloody barbarians!

6. The there are the hard working middle class who are struggling against rising cost of living only to see tolls go up significantly, followed soon after with announcements of the toll concessionaires on their strong profits and cash earnings that they will be paying to share holders special cash dividends / capital repayments..

7. What about the civil servants in places like EPU that suddenly became irrelevant because other smart people were making all the decisions? They could have easily expressed their dissatisfaction at the ballot box.

I can keep going on with this list and by the time I am finished, theoretically no one would have voted for BN. So in a way BN must celebrate the fact that they did get a simple majority.

So here is the lesson and it is a lesson in change leadership. As much as Khairy, Azman Mokhtar and Co, Md Noor Yaakop want to bring change to the country, there are some fundamentals that if violated will spell disaster. Unfortunately in this GE these fundementals were violated:

1. Leaders must walk the talk – how it was violated – when Pak Lah took over the PM’s job he said he was cutting back on all og TUN M’s projects casue the country has no money and soon after he went on a spending spree including a spanking new PRIVATE JET which is a full size ARIBUS. That is not walking the talk.

2. Leaders must respect the past – Not much to say here asides from how much the young turks denigrated and rubbished the past. They told the civil servants how lazy they were…
3. Leaders must solve the right problems – here KJ & Co or PAK LAH and Co identified the problem – CORRUPTION but did nothing about it. Remember the AP scandals, Zakaria Mat Deros…

3. Empathy – leaders must show empathy, a strong sense of connection. Its hard to do that when the country is under flood waters and the leader is sailing in the australian sunshime or opening a relatives MAMAK shop in australia.

So while you don’t necessarily win an election by doing big things, but you will loose an election by ignoring the small stuff. Pak Lah and KJ missed a thousand and one small things!

Does Pak Lah’s Logic stand to reason?

Let me start by giving the concluding paragraph from a PDRM report (link is down below)

Conclusion

We have seen from the above that there will be a growth in both the statistical index and also the nature of crime in the future. This will definitely have an impact on the criminal justice response especially so with the police which is entrusted with the investigation of cases. With this unsettling crime rate and trends at present it is bound to become worse in the future as crime is gradually increasing. It will thus be prudent for the policy makers to invest in the police now so as to ensure that this predicament does not become a reality in years to come. The often mentioned reasons by the police for the rise of crime like manpower shortage, lack of technically advanced equipment, development resources cut-back are some of the points that can be pondered upon. On the same note the police must strive to be more professional and corruption free, so that we can be on the road to a safe society with an exemplary police force.

That’s the conclusion from a PDRM report on how to tackle crime. Now this is what Pak Lah said, and I presume in response, to the Nurin Murder case:

Nation (Star)

Tuesday September 25, 2007

Single session for kids’ safety

By AUDREY EDWARDS

KUALA LUMPUR: To keep children safe from danger, the Prime Minister has suggested that a single session for schools be implemented.

Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi said this would mean students starting school as they were doing now and ending at 4pm.

“If it can be done, it will be a massive exercise,” he told reporters yesterday after chairing the Umno supreme council meeting.

“This will be a relief when both parents know their children are in school so they will be safer.”

This was the view, he said, of many working parents who were not at home to monitor their children when they got back from school.

On the same day, same news paper: this story is carried :

Nation(Star)

Tuesday September 25, 2007

Molest of students triggers alarm in Brickfields

KUALA LUMPUR: Two students were molested recently when they walked from the Tun Sambanthan monorail station to the Kuen Cheng Girls’ High School in the morning….

..City Hall will also ensure that all the lights in the overhead bridge function properly between 6am to 8am and police will station their officers there.

“The bridge has been installed with more than 20 fluorescent tubes but some of them were out of order on the morning of the incident,” said Bukit Bintang MP Fong Kui Lun who brought City Hall officers to inspect the site yesterday.

It didn’t happen in school, it happened on the way to school as a result of failure in your delivery of public service! Doesn’t matter what the school hours and sessions are, if there is poor enforcement and delivery of public services such incidences will continue to rise. Plus parents have to work long hours to make enough money to eek out a decent living given all the cost increases. Nothing to do with school sessions either.

Maybe the reality of it is Malaysians do lead exciting sex life’s….

Again, same day, same paper:

Nation

Tuesday September 25, 2007
MYT 7:32:43 PM

Survey: M’sians lead exciting sex lives

KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysians lead a relatively active and exciting sex life compared with the global average, according to Durex’s Sexual Wellbeing Global Survey.

The second report from its survey said that 79% of Malaysians — compared with 67% of the world’s lovers — make love weekly.

Furthermore, over 35% Malaysians do so three times a week or more, versus a global average of only 10%.

However, this is not enough for 54% of Malaysians and 62% of the world’s lovers who would like it to happen more often, the condom-maker said in a statement.

Again, same day same paper:

Nation

Tuesday September 25, 2007

Three teens slashed near cyber cafe

JOHOR BARU: Three teenagers were severely injured after three masked men slashed them near a cyber cafe.

The three assailants, armed with parangs, attacked the victims, aged 15, 18 and 21, as they were about to leave the cyber cafe in Permas Jaya at 1.15pm on Friday.

Johor Baru (South) OCPD Asst Comm Zainuddin Yaacob said the victims suffered injuries on the head, arms and one lost a finger.

“Initial investigations revealed that the assailants might have borne grudges against the victims.

“We are not ruling out the possibility the motive was gang-related,” he said.

Looking at all of the above news reports, I can’t see how staying in school will solve the problem. Maybe it will be worse, like in the US where it is all single session till about 3pm – but there they just come to school and shoot people.

My take is that we are fairly clueless in what the solutions are. No, I take that back. Actually we know what the solutions are, we just don’t have the mindset nor political will to pursue the solutions which is : effective delivery of public services – get rid of corruption, better policing and most of all improve employment and standards of living.

Crime goes up when employment comes down. It all boils down to the economy. Assuming that that is true fact and here is a quote from the PDRM report:

When the economy is strong and consumption of consumer goods and services is growing, property crime growth tends to slow down or reverse. The opposite is true during periods of economic recession. The correlation between the economy and crime rates in Malaysia was illustrated during the economic downturns that hit our country during the periods of 1986 and 1997 which saw an influx of cases7.

Go read the full PDRM report here:Crime Levels and trend in the next decade

Now if what our Police say is true, then how do I reconcile the apparent rise in domestic crime with the purported feel good factor:

This is Pak Lah in the press yesterday :

Nation

Monday September 24, 2007

Rakyat excited about future

PETALING JAYA: The people have greeted the economic regions mapped out by the Government with excitement because they have seen the multitude of opportunities open to them.

Prime Minister Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi said public reception to the development corridors was good.

“There is excitement when they hear we are going to bring development to the corridor areas,” he said last night..

In terms of education and the economic regions, the Government was setting up universities, colleges and community colleges which people would view as providing opportunities for their children, he said.

“And if we emphasise on business and industry at the SME level, they know this will give good opportunities to the ordinary folk,” he said.

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Asked how the Government would ensure that ordinary Malaysians reaped benefits from the economic regions and not major companies or foreign investors, the prime minister said the Government would create many opportunities to include them such as in tourism, agriculture and small and medium industries.

On whether the good economic climate in Malaysia would bring on early general election, he laughed and said:

“That one, wait first. We still have a mandate of two years.”

Frankly, we need to be excited about today, not the future if we really want crime to stop.