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The Kepong flyover disaster shows Pak Lah's worst enemy now is his geriatric cabinet

THE WORKS MINISTER, DATO' Seri S. Samy Vellu, is what the Malaysian cabinet is: he is there by the Grace of God; he can say what he likes and get away with it; he does not care how stupid he can be and often is nor how outrageous his statements; he represents the might of a geriatric cabinet that should have been; and believes that two decades and more in office gives me the right to ignore political and other realities.

He believes public purse is best looked after by spending it as quickly as possible. Political, fiscal and economic realities are for the birds, not him.

The prime minister, Dato' Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, may find this unfair, but the geriatric cabinet he presides over is his most dangerous enemy, not his deputy prime minister, Dato' Seri Najib Tun Razak, nor his challenger for the UMNO presidency, Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah, nor even his predecessor as the jailed deputy prime minister and UMNO deputy president, Dato' Seri Anwar Ibrahim.

Geriatric though his cabinet is, its individual members are often UMNO bigwigs of some substance whose clout is hidden and could surface if they are sacked or forced into a corner.

Pak Lah is therefore forced to back his cabinet, which repays this support by proving to UMNO and Malaysians how stupid and dangerous it can be. The chaotic cabinet presides over a chaotic administration trundling along clueless and without direction.

Its arrogance has to be seen to be believed. Once elected, it insists that that gives it the right to decide on behalf of the voters without referring to them, and those who challenge this paternalism are enemies of the people.

It worked while the going was good. It does not any more. Whatever it does today it is an attempt to cover up what it can no longer do: get the people behind it. But it continues to make headline news but for the wrong reasons.

Dato' Seri Samy would have occasion, if he continues in office, to make it, as he just has over the Kepong flyover. He insists that it is now shut down after 31 of its 33 beams cracked after 18 months of use is no proof it was not properly built or the consultants did a poor job. The contractors are not fault, nor its consultants. Any one who questions either can be sued for defamation.

But the simple truth of the matter is that the Kepong flyover, part of the middle ring road project, is badly and dangerously constructed, for which the only parties responsibile are tthe works ministry, the contractors and the consultants.

It is built on the Malaysia Boleh plan: the project is not tendered, but given to the first party to suggest it, and the price negotiated to the builder's advantage. If it had been tendered out, the price would be half the RM238 million it cost, and the flyover would not have broken down as it surely as it has.

But Dato' Seri Samy argues that although the contractors and its consultants are not at fault, they would nevertheless pay for the repairs. What one cannot understand is why the works ministry brings consultants into the picture when it should have been the contractors and consultants who should have done it.

He should have just ordered them to repair it, or the government would and bill them. His insistance that the consultants were not at fault is untenable: if they are not at fault, how did 31 of the 33 beams fail, and why is the flyover shut down after 18 months of use?

Instead of addressing the reality, Dato' Seri Samy threatens and goes into a huff when he is challenged. The Anti-Corruption Agency wants to investigate. The minister reacts with a threat: the project would be further delayed.

As it is, he has started to do remedial repairs, using an untested method which he insists would set matters right. It would not. If 31 of 33 beams holding up the flyover can crack and cause it sway after less than 18 months of use, it points to a fundamental flaw in its construction that can be repaired only if it is rebuilt.

Dato' Seri Samy however does not thing so. He is only concerned to shift the blame from the contractors and consultants to the government and by extension the long suffering tax payer. The Middle Ring Road project, of which this is a part, is one of dozens of crony-laden projects issued without tendering for it and the first to suggest it, with the cost blown skyhigh with no thought of its safety or other technical and political considerations. It is yet another example of the Mahathir epoch's extravagance, waste, and the belief that the crony business men could survive only if the taxpayer and voter is made to suffer.

This is the first of those projects to fail. It is a matter of time before others are. The Kepong flyover is the tip of the Malaysia Boleh iceberg. Other mega projects can fail similarly. The government is caught with no money in the till. But it has to put a brave front: money flows like water, and there is nothing to fear. But its cash cow, Petronas, is not so flush with cash are it once was; its treasury raided for day-to-day government expenses.

The government has borrowed to the hilt, and it cannot, on present circumstances, replay it. Its internal debt of RM160 billion and external debt of RM400 billion means that a large portion of its revenues go to debt servicing. It cannot afford to continue providing cheap loans to civil servants. That has ballooned to RM27 billion. It wants to privatise it, but none of the major financial institutions wants to touch it.

So it has gone to a little known company with less than five years of fund management. What it does not need is to have the hugely expensive and ill thought out mega projects of the Mahathir years return to haunt a government slowly and surely descending into a nightmarish quagmire.

M.G.G. Pillai
pillai@streamyx.com