Big Bad Wolf

Port Klang Free Zone (PKFZ) Fiasco.

That was what The Sun newspaper has been reporting for the past few weeks. This was one project that can catapult our Port Klang to be on par with the best in the world. But sadly, after years of planning and resources dumped into it, it is now on the verge of collapsing.

Satu lagi projek Barisan Nasional!! 　

A prominent Dubai investor (Jafza) has pulled out of the project leaving the Malaysian counterpart in doldrum. Some of the reasons cited by Chuck Heath, the Senior VP of Jafza were:-

1) "political interference, bureaucracy and breaches of the management agreement signed between Jafza and the Port Klang Authority (PKA)."

2) "total lack of government planning ... which has seen the most fundamental issues being considered and resolved only after the event rather than before".

3) transparency was non-existent and the "Malaysian political and economic landscape has too many vested interests seeking involvement and control in this project"

But i love the way Chuck Heath put the third statement. He is indirectly implying that there are definitely people who wanted to take part in the satu-lagi-projek-Barisan-Nasional project.

Now, now, now. Notice anything fishy there? One could have easily guessed that there are some people who wanted to be hanky panky here!!

Now, the sole Malaysian company is on the nearing bancruptcy, and guess who is coming to rescue??

Satu lagi projek Barisan Nasional!! 　

Yup, our government is going to bail out the company, forking out almost RM4 billion to do so. They said that they have no choice but to help worr... And they are "forced" to do so worr....(Read it here)

BarrgerR!!!!

That's RM 4 B.I.L.L.I.O.N we are talking about!! That is with a capital B!!!

To give you a clue on how much is this RM 4B, lets take a look at some figure:-

1)

Tahun	Kutipan Individu (RM juta)	Kutipan Syarikat (RM juta)	JUMLAH
2001	9,436	20,772	30,208
2002	9,889	24,643	34,532
2003	7,984	23,990	31,974
2004	8,977	24,388	33,365
2005	8,649	26,381	35,030
2006	10,196	26,477	36,673

This table shows the total tax revenue collected by the Internal Revenue Board from 2001 to 2006. -sourced from here. RM4B is more than 10% of our total tax collection. Which means, 10% of the tax you guys are paying are going into someone's wallet.

2) Total construction cost for SMART tunnel is almost RM 2B. That means, we could have build two SMART tunnel with this total amount of money.

3) RM 4.4B is the amount committed by the government to improve our public transport after removing partially the fuel subsidy earlier this year. But guess our public transport will never be revamped cause our numbskull ministers decided to use the money to bail a failed company out of bancruptcy.

All i see is that the money will not help the company nor the project. In fact, I am very sure that the money will be used to make one's (or many) piggy bank(s) burst with money.

Now, is this a fiasco? No, I don't think so. Fiesta sounds more convincing.