Najib trying to ‘outdo Mahathir’ in mega projects – Kit Siang

DAP stalwart Lim Kit Siang claims that the recent Budget 2011 as announced by the prime minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak was his way out ‘outdoing’ his predecessor, Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad especially in terms of mega projects when he mentioned about building the Warisan Merdeka, the new Kuala Lumpur landmark, which is a 100 storey building.

He said “Despite all its bombast and pyrotechnics, Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak’s 2011 budget is not a child of the New Economic Model but bears all the marks of old discredited policies which have landed Malaysia in the middle-income trap for more than a decade, setting the country towards a failed and bankrupt nation come 2019. Former Prime Minister Tun Mahathir’s obsession with mega projects like the proposed RM5 billion 100-storey Warisan Merdeka tower is back with a vengeance. It must be asked whether Najib is secretly trying to out-Mahathir Mahathir not only to build a tower higher than Mahathir’s Petronas Twin Towers, but which could be acclaimed as the tallest in the world — however brief the claim?”

Kit Siang added that “Najib’s 2011 Budget is not convincing that it represents the first budget of a New Economic Model to transform Malaysia from a middle income country to an inclusive and sustainable high-income developed country by 2020, emphasising high-skilled human capital, efficient public services, a reinvigorated private sector and equal opportunity for all Malaysians. What surety is that the National Talent Blueprint is not condemned to failure like previous “Brain Gain” programmes for the simple reason that there is no political leadership and will in the Najib administration to achieve the vision spelt out by the New Economic Model,”



comments

Country already in deep crisis . Thousands of 'cable less' contractors of all classes, sub contractors, suppliers, dealers, workers are short of jobs. Why spend rm5 billions on one single mega projects that benefits a handful of 'cronies' architects, consultants, contractors, sub contractors, suppliers ...etc ?

Currently, many high rise commercial buildings are still fill with empty lots due to multiple foreign companies & foreign investors that had left our country, WHY we still need a new 100 stories rm5 billions white elephant building ? ( End of the day, the occupants will most probably from our own GLCs and FG departments/sectors who will occupy most of this building lots instead from the foreigners). Sure this will be another white elephant project, surely there will be a delay and will over run by billions (as in all our previous mega projects ...our famous Umno's trend/norm). Will this rm5 billion building help to jump start our economy ? Any sane man will knows that it won't help ( to jump start our economy ) but on the contrary it will further burdened our country especially when our nation is in a huge debt (rm362 billions).

What does this rm5 billions project represent ? To me it represent a huge opportunity for the super elite to have a big chunk of 'commission' from it. In all the past mega projects it only benefited only a handful of cronies architects & consultants, cronies contractors & sub contractors, cronies supplier & dealers, so for the rest of thousands of 'cable less' architects, consultants, contractors, sub contractors, suppliers, dealers they can only watch & see but cannot touch

As we all have seen and seen and seen, all government link mega projects FAILED miserably like PKFZ, Proton, Perwaja, Bakun, MAS, ...etc each of these projects are amount to billions in losses. And we haven't go into details of hundreds of government link medium projects too had failed miserably too (amounting to million to multi millions of losses PER medium project).

A whopping rm5 billion white elephant project in the middle of our national crisis is totally absurd ! Why not break up this rm5 billions into five hundreds small projects ( of an average of rm10 millions per project), from it will definitely benefits many architects, consultants, contractors, sub contractors, suppliers, dealers ... etc. And it will most probably help to jump start the construction industries.

GLC mega projects that make great profits - i see none.
GLC mega projects that make big losses - is abundant.

TMFTLW said "how can we not go bankrupt by 2019"..!!. If these mega white elephant projects keep coming, FDI is still plunging, brain draining is still here, we not only go bankrupt by 2019 but we actually speed up the process of bankruptcy it could happen as early as 2016 or 2017.