from: Saleh Mohammed, via email

Recently Tan Sri Ramon Navaratnam posed this remark or question in an article: “As a former senior civil servant I am perplexed and politely ask – what has become of our national management of foreign workers and the consultation by and coordination in government, please? We obviously need to consult the public.” He also used the words ‘repeated mistakes’ and ‘blunders’.

Well, that was about foreign labour.

Let us have a look at another simple and classic case of no or poor consultation by, and coordination in, government department or agencies and no consultation with the public or other stakeholders.

Unknown to many, stage bus services in greater Kuala Lumpur and Klang Valley have been reorganised. The aim was to reduce waiting time for commuters during peak hours and better integration with other public transport modes and also improve “first and last mile” connectivity.

Upon implementation in December last year, there were complaints from doctors, nurses and patients at the University of Malaya Medical Centre. The direct bus service from Kuala Lumpur to the hospital had been taken away. The concern was heightened when doctors started noticing patients coming in with accelerated heart rates and high blood pressure readings.

The noble aim of reducing waiting time had been dashed. The additional journey had inconvenienced many and is costing people going to UMMC more in terms of time and money.

Following complaints, SPAD said that they would look into the concerns of the hospital staff and patients and further discussions wiould be held by SPAD and Rapid KL.

Let’s have a look at another case.

There has been a proposal (not discussed and finalised yet) to close certain roads in Kuala Lumpur to allow motorcycle races by ‘Mat Rempits’.

Please consider this proposal: let us close Jalan Chow Kit at certain times to allow drug dealers to peddle their trade there.

Now, which of the two proposals would you would support? Aren’t both activities illegal?

With due respect to some politicians, were they aware, as commented by Professor Dr Ahmad Farhan Mohd Sadullah, “Malaysia as a country that has committed towards the achievement of the UN Decade of Action for Road Safety, all initiatives must have safer roads as the aspired outcomes.”

Just look at the response from ordinary Malaysians…

Luckily, the IGP did not get excited and he plans to meet the person who made the proposal.

On that score, hopefully we could also talk to people first before suggesting higher fines to reduce road accidents or threatening the ordinary folk with arrest, treason investigation and the like.

There are many other flip-flops you can source from the internet.

I think all Malaysians would like these “policy flip-flops” to be minimised, and save ordinary citizens from getting confused or maybe becoming afraid. A developed nation cannot afford to have a majority of its citizens a confused lot.

Surely there is someone or somebody who could help to put things in order.

That reminds me of the lyrics of the song Ghostbusters. “If there’s something strange in your neighbourhood, Who you gonna call? If there’s something weird and it don’t look good, Who you gonna call?”

Even though we are afraid of these things happening around us, I guess it is not the Ghostbusters that we ‘gonna’ call but Pemandu.

I am quite sure Malaysians would like to hear comments from its government transformation programmes. Would Pemandu take a stick to errant parties? If not, can Pemandu come up with some guidelines?

Can we do it?

Now, how would the world look at Malaysia: Malaysia still Boleh, or Malaysia forever Boleh?

Saleh Mohammed is an FMT reader

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