By Parliamentary Opposition Leader, DAP Secretary-General and MP for Tanjung, Lim kit Siang, in Penang on Saturday, January 1 , 1994:
DAP calls on the Cabinet to launch a “zero defect” campaign in the entire government service to identify and overcome all possible human weaknesses and system defects to minimise avoidable disasters like the Subang International Airport Fires, Highland Towers Collapse Disaster and the latest RMAF helicopter crash.
DAP sends its deepest condolence to the families of the pilot, Mej Kamarul Bahrin Mohamad, and three crew members, co-pilot Kapt Fitri Abdullah, Flight Sjn Nordin Ahamd and Flight Sjn Azni Alias of RMAF MAS-332 Super Puma Helicopter who were killed in the latest helicopter crash in Sungai Petani yesterday.
The Indonesian-made Super Puma was on its way from Butterworth to Kangar to pick up Deputy Minister, Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim, when it crashed and it is most fortunate that Anwar Ibrahim and his party escaped the helicopter crash.
The latest RMAF helicopter crash, which is the eighth involving RMAF aircraft this year and the 15th since 1990, ended 1993 as a Year of Disaster for Malaysians.
Although the Defence Ministry has set up a board of inquiry to investigate the Super Puma crash at Taman Nilam, Sunagi Patani, as in the case of all the 15 RMAF crashes. The question must be asked as to whether there is something seriously wrong as to why there is such a high incidence of RMAF crashes in the past few years.
In fact, a larger question should be posed as to why there is such a high incidence of avoidable disasters in Malaysia – like the recent Highland Towers Collapse Disaster, where over 70 lives were lost.
DAP calls on the Cabinet to urgently launch a zero defect campaign in the entire government service to identify and overcome all possible human weaknesses and system defects to minimise avoidable disasters like the Subang International Airport fires, the Highlands Towers Collapse Disaster and the RMAF helicopter and aircraft crashes.
The government must also show that it is serious in wanting to avoid a recurrence of avoidable disasters, like the Subang International Airport control Tower Fire in October 1992.
Immediately after the Subang International Airport Control Tower Fire in October 1992 – the second airport fire in six months – the Cabinet decided to set up a committee of inquiry which was old to submit its report in the shortest possible time, and to complete it within two weeks if possible.
We are now in 1994 , and some 15 months have passed, and there is still no report from the Inquiry Committee into the Subang International Airport Control Tower Fire.
The Transport Minister, Datuk Dr. Ling Liong Sik, who gave so many assurances about through and speedy investigations int the airport control tower fire at that time must explain what has happened to the committee inquiry.
Such indifference by the highest- levels of government up to Cabinet level after a ‘five-minute beated interest’ in the immediate aftermath of a disaster height of irresponsibility. Such attitudes must be eliminated in the ‘ zero defect’ campaign in the entire civil service to ensure that 1994 would not be a Year of Disaster as had been the case with 1993.