MGG Pillai Commentary View

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Is the National Front for the people?

TELECOMS has charged me for a service I did not ask for. It assumed I needed it, although according to its rules, I must ask for it. All subscribers to the Telekoms service should have got it, earning it a tidy sum it would not have got otherwise. What the government or its linked companies cannot get from the consumer, they steal it by hook or by crook. When I complained, I got a stock reply that I have been unusubscribed from the service I did not ask for but I would have to pay until cancelled, and which I knew of only after I received the bill for the month. But this is not my only grouse. Getting to Telecoms is a chore, what with all the "labour saving devices" it has at its command. It assumes that anyone who telephones it has time to waste. I have had a human being speak to me after several tries lasting several hours.

I find calling its help desk often. I have not been lucky to get the person the first time. Each time, I am left holding the telephone, often for ten minutes or longer, hearing the sickening message that "your call is important to us". and being cut off after some time, this time without any apology or message. I have to call again. I have had been cut off two or three times on occasion. Automation is introduced in Telekoms, as with other Government Linked Companies and government departments to free the telephone operators from having to speak to callers. This is regarded as being modern. Funny, though, I could get who I wanted when in London, Tokyo, Paris, Washington, even Bangor, Maine, even if I did not get to the operator. I shudder these days of having to call Telekom to report the phone out of order, or to get help. I must first make sure I am not going out in the next two hours, and I have time to waste. It is more important to have labour saving devices, it seems, than find out it if that benefits the public.

Much of the public anger at government services has this type, among others, of modernization to blame. To put it another way, the GLCs and government departments work to annoy the public, already burdered with government measures taken so that those close can benefit from the public loss. The withdrawal of the 30 sen subsidy on the price of petrol has brought this out in the open. This anger at being led up the garden path is one reason why rise in petrol has become so serious. Until the truth is told, and why, if it does, it took so long to reveal it, Pak Lah must say categorically and truthfully that it is not so that one relative can get all the projects in one section of the Ninth Malaysia Plan. The withdrawal gave that much extra for this man to get all the contracts in the section he was aiming for. This may or may not be true, but it is widely believed. It is not for the government or Pak Lah to say this is not so. No one believes its denial, especially how it is said.

This 30 sen rise in petrol has led to several common items costing higher. Pak Lah has said this should not happen. But how many, particularly the big shots, have been brought to court for breaching his government orders? So far, none. If anyone is brought to court, it is usually the small business man or hawker, who has to raise prices because he has to pay more for every ingredient he uses or sells. The government critises the demonstrations against the rise in petrol since they have at their back opposition political parties. But it is wrong there. If the National Front is uninterested in raising issues, the opposition parties will step in. The days when the government could get away by insisting the opposition parties oppose its plans are long gone. It is no use saying that those who do are in the opposition. To the man-in-the-street, the National Front forms the government. He thinks it is monolithic as the National Front once said it was. The way out is for Pak Lah as president of National Front and UMNO to admit it is not. But he would not say that, would he?

Today, the National Front talks in different tongues. Government policy, introduced by one minister, is often contradicted by another. This is reported in loving detail by its public relations arm, Malaysia's mainstream newspapers, and government media, where even the deputy prime minister, Dato' Seri Najib Tun Razak, is given space only if he supports Pak Lah in his speech or statement. The rumour going around is that Pak Lah's son-in-law has incriminating documents of Dato' Seri Najib which would be released if any bid is made for Pak Lah's job. Whether this is true is not what matters; what does is that many believe it. No amount of spin to the contrary can change that. But truth is not what we have come to expect in this age of spin. In the past, this could have worked. Not now, when the internet is active and the government is second guessed. No amount of harrassment can change that.

I was without a computer last week, thanks to a private individual close to the levers of power, the MAS former executive chairman, Dato' Munir Majid. The Inspector-General of Police got involved, as I learned days after my computer was returned. Pak Lah is also minister of security, but Datuk Munir is close to a senior minister, who ordered my computer seized. But why is Pak Lah and the Inspector-General of Police involved in an action for defamation, if at all? The police got involved because there is in our law books, though not in several Commonwealth countries, punishment for criminal defamation. The aim was to find out who wrote the flying letters. But what is contained in the flying letters has made to the official media. So it must be right. So, is the cabinet working at cross purposes, as this shows? As the cabinet is with the governnent, UMNO with each other and with other parties in the National Front, and which together is on one side and the people on the other.

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