Speech by Ketua Pembangkang and DAP Secretary-General, Lim Kit Siang, at the inaugural meeting of the DAP Consumers and Environmental Protection Bureau held at Petaling Jaya DAP Headquarters on Thursday, 1st Sept. 1977 at 8 p.m.
DAP wants an urgent Master Plan to revolutionise public transportation and provide fast, efficient and cheap bus services throughout the country
The DAP Consumers and Environment Protection Bureau is a new DAP bureau to specially concentrate on consumer and environmental protection. The Party expects the DAP Consumers and Environmental Protection Bureau to complement the efforts of consumer and environmental protection bodies in the country.
Consumer and environment protection have become more and more urgent issues, especially as we see every day, examples of exploitation of consumers whether by over-pricing, profiteering, or sub-standard manufacture, and the despoliation of our environments.
Recently, the bus companies have been pressing for an increase of bus fares, and this is now receiving the active consideration of the Ministry of Works and Utilities.
The public transport service in Kuala Lumpur, Petaling Jaya and the big towns is a scandal, where the low-income groups who are forced to rely on buses as their chief means of transport had to wait hours for their buses.
The Ministry of works and Utilities has failed in its duty to ensure that there is an efficient, fast and cheap public transport service in the country. To actively consider the request of bus companies for price increase foes not guarantee any change or improvement in the public transport system.
What the Ministry of Works and Utilities must do is to urgently come out with a Master Plan which will provide a fast, efficient and cheap bus service in all the big towns in the country. The Ministry should give itself two or three months to finalise such a Master Plan and revolutionise the entire public transport system. Or is this job too big for the Minister, Dato Ganie Gilong, and the Deputy Minister, Dr. Goh Cheng Teik, to handle?
Ministry of Trade and Industry ineffective in checking price increases and ensuring adequate supplies of essential items
The Ministry of trade and industry has proved to be incapable of fighting price increases or artificial shortages of essential items.
The Ministry allows prices of products to go up but does nothing to bring own prices. A good example is flour, for although the price of wheat flour had been reduced by five cents a kati, the price of bread and other flour products have remained.
In various parts of the country, chronic shortage of kerosene and diesel keep recurring. But the Ministry of Trade and Industry appears unaware or unconcerned. This is where the bureau can expose such deficiencies and government indifference.
Endau-Rompin: Proof of the emptiness of the Third Malaysia plan
Recently, the massacre of the designated Endau-Rompin national park has featured prominently in the local press. Three weeks ago, the Minister of Science, Technology and Environment, Tan Sri Ong Kee Hui, stated that his Ministry was against the logging in Endau-Rompin, and he claimed that the Pahang Government was facing a dilemma – of weather to compensate the licensees sites for them.
But only a few days ago, it was reported that the Pahang State Government was expected to issue more licences to log the Pahang portion of the core area of the proposed Endau-Rompin National Park.
The Third Malaysia Plan, 1976 – 1980, has a whole chapter on the Government’s promise to give full attention in the planning and implementation of Third Malaysia Plan programmes to environmental improvement and protection.
The Endau-Rompin massacres show up the Government’s empty commitment, of sweet-sounding pledges in the Third Malaysia Plan, which it has neither the will nor the intention to honour.
The Central Government has the power to stop the despoliation of the proposed Endau-Rompin national park. It should do so immediately, and prove that its profession of concern for environmental protection quality of life is genuine, and not just more lip-service.