Saturday, February 18, 2012

A Brief History of Failures

A quick glance at the history of our initiatives had shown our unacceptable statistics of failures. When we were excitingly busy celebrating our small and minute successes, our small neighbor at our southern tip was quietly but strategically planned and implemented the stream of activities to make it the only "first world nation" in the region.

1. I still remember the days in 1960, when the "Bahasa Kebangsaan" initiative was carries out. Thousands of school children were marching, including me, thoughout the nation singing the song, "Gunakan lah Bahasa kebangsaan kita... ".

Now, 50 years down the road, the song has hardly been played in the radio, the nation is more confused, the voices of oppositions are louder. We, as a nation are unsure how to resolve the issue of "Teaching of Science and Maths" . That itself speaks of our standard and capability.

2. In the 80, we had the Muhibbah initiatives. The government was spending millions on $$ to promote the community integration. Many people are wondering about the results. The integration has to lead by the stronger community. We are operating in ethnic barriers.

3. In the 90s, we had the " sistem payung". Someone had quoted, "I am going to create 10 bumi millionaires who are going to create 10 millionaires each" Now the 10 millionaires created are still millionaires, however there is no trace of the 2nd generation of millionaires. What is known, the government had been spending many millions of $$, enough to fund the 100 millionaires that was planned. The out of courts settlements in MAS cases are beyond expectation of discern public.

4. In 2000, we had the MSC, we still have it, in its name but not in the functions. We were the proud members of the citizen, that were witnessing an event that will propel the nation to the global era.
Seven flagships were launched, ref http://www.nitc.my/index.cfm?&menuid=28. Surprisingly, the nitc web had changed the agenda ... quoting 4 flagships were launched which were ... then in another sentence, 3 more were also launched.

5. In 2010 we had the 1 Malaysia and the ETP. If we were to ask about the concept of 1 malaysia, many will give conflicting views. Please do not have the wrong idea that the master craftmen are confused. They know what they are doing, and it is one of the tested and proven way of mindset engineering.

The above are talking about a nation. However I had seen and even involved at a lower level of significant, in organisations and even smaller companies which are mapped against the nations' course. One thing was obvious, they share the same frame of minds, they are politicians and have or had higher inclination to stage performance. My thought of stage performers, they have to twiddle themselves to 150% level for that the short interval of time, mainly for interim performance, but the reality is obviously the opposite. That remind me of the late Whitney Houston.

Friday, February 3, 2012

collapse stadium - more problems

The rm292 million stadium was completed ready for the Malaysian Games in 2008. The Terrengganu leadership under the Barisan National was happy. Then the disaster struck, a major portion of the roof collapsed. There was report that it was still under warranty. However the real situation is unknown to the majority of the population.

In Malaysia, the awards of the major government tenders are normally done in a closed situation. There is no open tender and only selected companies are invited. The companies may have a close relationship with the leaders. It is unfortunate for the country to have slipped down further in the transparency index, an international attempts to measure the corruptions in countries worldwide.

It is reported that more problems cropped in due to thief. An estimate of rm50 millions of wiring and electrical equipment were reported stolen.

When the newspaper went to investigate, the stadium was in sorry state. Almost all the facilities were damaged. The untra modern bowling alley was broken into. The control room with the expensive equipment was not spared, it look like a war zone.

The official of the stadium played the blaming game when they told that police was informed. The wonder why they cannot get guards to look after the place. Building a fence to protect the stadium was better, even if it can no longer be used for sport events, it can be viewed as a monuments of failure.

Incidently Terrengganu is a very rich state, with the royalty of the oil and gas, the royalty was withdrawn when the opposition took over the state. Some people may have different views on fairness and what is right and wrong


Thursday, February 2, 2012

Sabah gas

A new project is in process for petronas for the Sabah gas. Project cost is expected to be rm2bil located at Lahat Datu Sabah. The produce of the project is 200MW of electricity. It will have to main components, the power plant to generate the electricity and the LNG terminal.

We do hope they still remember the bakun dam which was intended to produce 2400 MW of power. A few years ago, the country was very concern about who will be consuming the excess power. There was even talk making the distribution connection to west Malaysia.

It does seem odd that TNB has a standby plant in Langkawi. The shortage of electricity in Sabah is so critical that the dismantling efforts has already started to move the 70MW plants to Sabah. The job is scheduled to complete by July 2012.

Consultants had already been appointed and the initial EIA environmental effect assessment has already started.

Commenting on the Sabah gas project, it is not a good practice to have a long transmission line. The 300 km line is too long as it will be subjected to frequent breakdown due to the lightnings strike and falling trees. If this happen, the whole area will be blackout.

People is baffled by the issue of IPP, or independent power producer, when the government owned TNB had to buy the power at higher cost than the market price. The government insists that this matter is an official secret of the country and suppose to protect the interest of the country. Many feel that this is a business contract, and the official secret acts is used as a matter of convenience to protect other that the country.