by Parliamentary opposition Leader, DAP Secretary-General and MP for Tanjung, Lim Kit Siang, in Petaling Jaya on Friday, March 5, 1993:
The constitutional crisis over the removal of the Rulers’ immunity has allowed many Ministers and government leaders to evade close scrutiny and accountability for their negligence, incompetence, abuses of power and malpractices
The constitutional crisis over the removal of the Rulers’ immunity for over three months has allowed many Ministers and government leaders to evade close scrutiny and accountability for their negligence, incompetence, abuses of power and malpractices.
The latest such example is the shocking announcement by MAS that it would withdraw operations of Boeing 737 flights to Sandakan from March 8 because of the deteriorating conditions of the airport runway.
The Sandakan airport has been described unsafe for B737s as one end of the 2,334-metre runway is sinking and collects water during a downpour, leaving only 1.886m stretch for landing.
With the withdrawal of the Boeing 737 flights, MAS would use Fokker 50 aircrafts instead to operate 70 return flights a week, reducing MAS’ seating capacity to 51%.
The Sandakan airport runway had been deteriorating since 1989 and the Minister for Transport, Datuk Dr. Ling Liong Sik, had done nothing about it – despite the entry of MCA into Sabah!
If the MCA President cannot even maintain the Sandakan airport to its existing standards which is under his direct Ministerial responsibility, what is the use of MCA expanding into Sabah?
What is more serious however is the recent picture of the breakdown of the economic and social infrastructure of the country, which does not speak well for Vision 2020 with Malaysia becoming a fully-developed nation.
The latest addition to Malaysia’ international notoriety – where its airports are downgraded to cater of to smaller aircrafts because of poor management and maintenance
Lately, Malaysia is gaining an international reputation for things which does not reflect well on the country and people’s management skills and technical expertise.
Malaysians must be ashamed that Malaysia’ international notoriety as a country where its international airport caught fire twice in six months and where nation-wide power blackouts have become a commonplace occurrence has now acquired a third item – where its airports have to be downgraded to cater to smaller aircrafts because of poor and irresponsible management and maintenance.
Furthermore, the present government morality where no Ministers or government leaders need to accept responsibility far the failures in his Ministry which have badly damaged Malaysia’s interna-tional reputation has further undermined national and international confidence in the present government.
DAP calls on Government to conduct a mid-term review of the Sixth Malaysia Plan and present it to Parliament for debate in the middle of the year
With so many things going wrong in government planning and implementation, it is most shocking that the Government has not yet conducted any mid-term review of the Sixth Malaysia Plan although we are arriving at the mid-point of the Plan.
I call on the Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Dr. Mahathir Mohamed, to confirm whether it is true that the government has decided to abandon a mid-term review of the Sixth Malaysia Plan altogether. This would be a break from the practice in the past two decades as there had been a mid-term review of the five-year plans since the Second Malaysia Plan in 1970.
Is this because a mid-term review of the Sixth Malaysia Plan will reveal too many mistakes and failures in planning and implementation – which has given Malaysia a bad international reputation and is frightening away potential investors.
DAP calls on the Government to keep to tradition and to conduct a mid-term review of the Sixth Malaysia Plan and present it to Parliament far debate in the middle of the year.