Kidex: Something is rotten in Denmark
This is a long posting to make up for the lack of postings this week. It has been an extremely busy week for me and today I have another 4 meetings.
My office is also looking to help out a kindergarten in the poor neighbourhood of Desaria. My volunteer Mr. Leong, my interns and I visited the kindergarten 2 days ago. The kindergarten needs several items and I have instructed the interns to prepare a project proposal and an implementation timetable. When the details are ready next week, I will post it up and anyone who wants to help can contact the interns. I am trying to make the interns “own” the project and be responsible and accountable for its delivery too.
Yesterday, I had 5 meetings: one with an academic specialising in poverty eradication, one in the HQ, one with Prasarana (briefing for LRT3- the project involves Glenmarie which is part of my constituency), a Ramadhan event in SS13 and Surau Al-Huda.
On the LRT accident last week, the mayor of MBPJ has responded to my letter and request and she will pressure Prasarana to do a health and safety townhall briefing as soon as possible. The Prasarana executives that came to see me yesterday are from the LRT3 planning division and as such could not provide any answers on the accident but they took home our message to remind their HQ. YB Hannah also suggested that Prasarana should seriously question and review the main contractor, TRC Synergy Berhad’s health and safety records.
Lastly, I represented Wan Azizah (she had a few Ramadhan related events) in a meeting with the Anti-Kidex NGO from 8.30pm to 11 pm. In the meeting, 4 PKR MPs (William Leong, Hee Loy Sian, Tian Chua and I) listened to the legitimate concerns and complaints of the anti Kidex group. To their credit, the group is very well organised and very well informed.
I related back to them my own bad experience facing the MB on the water issues; from hidden letters kept in his drawer, to secret meetings with BN and Najib which resulted in the infamous MOU. The MOU was drafted by his office then presented to BN to approve (MB taking the initiative to draft but says it is BN who controls the deal, go figure that one!). Till today the infamous MOU has never been released to the public, despite MB’s empty promises to release it when political pressure was high. Eventually he said that an agreement has superseded it, so no need to disclose anymore the MOU. However the new agreement is now not available to us because of OSA!
As such, when the group described the run around given by the MB, I really “felt their pain” (quoting Bill Clinton)! Such complaints raises deep concerns on the basic issue of governance and transparency in the MB’s administration. Similarly, the Christians have suffered the run around by the MB on the JAIS/MAIS bible raid issue (MB: I have no power, ask the AG, good bye Bible Society, I have no power, ask the Sultan, I have no power, ask the AG again). Some blame the EXCOs and ADUNs for not doing their job or not having the critical qualities or courage to speak up, but a case (albeit weak) can be made in their defence; that Selangor is actually run by the MB.
So it is really alarming that whilst we, the Pakatan Rakyat MPs train our guns at BN at the Federal level on governance issues, face the full federal machinery against us and deal with national legislative challenges, we should find our own home being run without consensus and with substandard governance.
What was surprising in the meeting was when the anti-Kidex group told us that the attitude of the BN Works Minister was so much better than the MB. The Minister had agreed to meet them on the first invitation. The MB has rejected 3 requests for meetings. In their meeting yesterday, the Minister also said that he is willing to revisit the Kidex concession agreement and will also intervene to ask the Selangor MB to release more documents to the anti-Kidex group. The Minister may or may not be paying political lip service but at least that is still better than closing the door on the group.
The matter is covered here in this news article: