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Media Conference         
by Lim Kit Siang  
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(Ipoh, Friday): On Tuesday, Malaysians saw on CNN the spectacle of the implosion of the 16-storey 1,000-room New Frontier casino-hotel, collapsing the second resort that opened on the Las Vegas Strip half-a-century ago with 1,000 pounds of explosives.

It was a spectacular engineering feat to behold, the precisely-planned and delicately-balanced demolition operation – to give way to a US$2 billion, 3,000-room mega resort Las Vegas Plaza, featuring a 500-ft tall Ferris Wheel similar in size to the famous London Eye, set to open in 2011.

Malaysia has also our own implosion on the same day, but it was a most shameful and ignominious one - the collapse of the RM4.5 million Perak State Park Corporation’s two-storey administration building on a hill slope on the edge of Tasik Banding in the Royal Belum State Park in Gerik.

The collapsed structure consisted of 14 rooms, an office block, a showroom to sell orang asli goods, and a car park. It was completed in 2004 with RM4.5 million funded by Tourism Ministry. The second phase with 26 more rooms costs RM5million is yet to begin.

Malaysia’s very own implosion was no spectacular engineering feat but spectacular building failure and government negligence.

After the Perak “implosion”, three different probes have been set up to investigate it causes – an “independent” committee by the state government, another investigation by the Perak Public Works Department on the directive of Works Minister, Datuk Seri S. Samy Vellu and by the Anti-Corruption Agency.

Malaysia’s implosion – which is so different from the Las Vegas implosion – is evidence that Malaysia is even more entrenched as a Third World country instead of joining the ranks of the First World nations.

I have given notice to the Speaker, Tan Sri Ramli Ngqh for an emergency motion in Parliament on Monday on the collapse of the RM4.5 million Perak State Park Corporation complex in the Royal Belum State Park, Perak.

Only two days ago, in his visit to Sarawak, the Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi was calling on state governments to contribute positively to his campaign to improve the government delivery system.

The Perak State Government seems to have delivered a response with the collapse of the complex in Belum Park.

It is unfortunate but true that in his four years as Prime Minister, there are increasing evidence of Malaysia degenerating from “First-World Infrastructure, Third-World Mentality” to “Third-World Infrastructure, Fourth-rate Mentality” where there are not only cracks galore in public buildings, but we seem to have into a new phase of collapsing buildings!

Never before in the 50-year history of the nation has the public service been seen as more inept and incompetent – with the unending list of “crack-ups” of new government buildings and public construction projects, whether the brand-new administrative capital of Putrajaya, the RM270 million world’s second largest court complex in Jalan Duta, Kuala Lumpur, the repeated leaks in the Parliament Building after RM100 million renovation, the safety of the 15-storey Domestic Trade and Consumer Affairs Ministry in Precinct 4, Putrajaya and the latest, the “implosion” and collapse of the RM4.5 million Royal Belum State Park administrative complex.

Who is going to be responsible for the RM4.5 million losses following the collapse of the Royal Belum State Park complex? Will it be the long-suffering taxpayers who will have to be the suckers again to foot the bill – while everyone else, whether the contractor, the government supervisor and those in authority who had a cut in the RM4.5 million project, enjoy impunity with some laughing all the way to the bank with their profits?

Heads must roll, and roll immediately, for the shameful “implosion” of the Tasik Banding complex – or is there no one to be held responsible?

In my motion in Parliament on Monday, I will press for an independent public inquiry to probe into the causes of the disgraceful collapse of the complex at Royal Belum State Park and the parties responsible for it.
 

(16/11/2007)