What The Toot!

So, after establishing how many state assemblyperson actually publish contactable email address, and how many state assemblyperson actually replied my email, let’s now turn our attention to the content. In other words, having looked the quantity, let’s look at the quality.

In this post, we will only look at 3 assemblymen whose task management is probably a little questionable.

Honorary Mr. Tan Hock Leong (PKR) from N14 Machang Bubuk wrote this to me on May 18. To give him some credit, he was the fastest and the first to reply. He said this:

Thank you for your email for notifying me about the tender PKN/2008/T1.
Will find out the status of the tender as soon as possible.

Honorary Datuk Arif Shah Bin Haji Omar Shah (BN) from N10 Seberang Jaya said the following on May 20. To his credit, he was the second to reply, and THE ONLY assemblyman from Barisan Nasional to reply. However, his reply lacked the proper capitalisation, excessive use of “..” and “.,” (which are not even standard punctuations), and over abbreviation:

dear mr.(My Name) ., As an assemblymen we are not aware of any purchases made by the govt.pl.write to the state treasury  and hopefully they can give you the related detailsetc.. thank you and regards..yb datuk arif shah .,

Ya, Honorary Datuk Arif Shah, I know assemblymen are not aware of the purchase. That’s why I decided to notify you. And, you as the representative of the people should find it out. After all, the notebooks and printers are for the assemblymen, i.e. you. Sadly I don’t think the state treasury will reply my mail. Oh wait, the state treasury is not even in charge of this tender. The tender is from the Penang State Secretariat Office.

Honorary Mr. Jagdeep Singh Deo (DAP) from N29 Datok Keramat sent this to me on May 28. Here’s the simple reply, but probably one of the most professional-looking in terms of formatting, but again, excessive use of abbreviation:

Mr (My Name),

Thk you for your email and i will get back to  u at the the soonest possible time.

YB Jagdeep Singh Deo

I sent replies to these assemblymen reminding them about my email and the ongoing tender, hoping to get a reply. Sadly, I never did hear from them again. Perhaps in their busy schedules they have forgotten to reply me.

And for that, I recommend all of them getting some form of “To-Do List” application. But to forget to even reply a simple email, is seriously TOOT!

Warning: Parental guidance and supervision is advised, as content might not be suitable for minors. Updated as I feel that I haven’t bash them enough. I know this is not a political, or even a serious blog per se, but this I gotta comment. One of the reason there has been a lack of updates is because of the 12th Malaysian General Election. The ruling party lost badly, and the opposition is in control of 5 states, including Penang. Five days after the election, this is in one of the local newspaper website: UMNO is now the opposition in Penang state assembly, and that is what they commented. What caught my attention was this

“Since the people have clearly rejected development and made their choice for a change, we will recommend to the federal government to cancel all such projects.”

Right. That has got to be one of the most ridiculous thing that has come out of a a party representative. According to them, because I voted for the opposition, I voted against Gerakan. That is of course entirely true. Next point, because all the development was supposedly brought in by Gerakan, and because I voted for the opposition, by extension of argument, I voted against development. That is akin to saying because one voted for a Barisan Nasional (BN) representative, by extension of argument they voted for UMNO, they voted for Kera Jantan, they voted for the discriminatory policies of the BN-led federal government, they voted for “bocor”, they voted for “tunnel”. If they want to play the “Extension of Arguments” game, let’s do it. Since some of the party member of UMNO are racists, by extension of argument UMNO is racist, BN is racist, and the Prime Minister is racist. Since the BN still lead the federal government, the 51% of the voters who voted for them are racist, and by extension Malaysia is a racist country. Surely arguments cannot be extended that way. Next point, the development the federal government brings to Penang:

• Second Penang Bridge - I am convinced it will not be delivered on time, and the staggering increase in the price since it was first reported is enough to cause some concern. Last I heard, UEM is part of the engineering team, and UEM is a Government-Linked Company (GLC).
• “Light Monorail Transit System” - An innovative name, but the period of time from first rumoured to the current non-existent condition of the “Light Monorial Transit System” is also courtesy of the BN-led Federal Government.
• Penang Outer Ring Road (PORR) - It has been more than 10 years and nothing has come out of it yet. Originally awarded to a company who clearly has no track record on such a mega project, the current situation of PORR is similar to the monorail - non-existent.
• RapidPenang - A company owned by the government, which provides expensive public transportation in Penang. So expensive, in fact, it is cheaper to drive, as I pointed out.

So, by extension of argument, the federal government is slow and inefficient? (Unfortunately this is perceived by most Malaysian and the world to be true, and even more unfortunately, it is true.)

“Don’t blame us on this.”

Don’t blame you? It is precisely this kind of attitude that led to the demise of your party in Penang and four more states in the country. I am now even more convinced you and your kind are not suitable to lead a state, let alone a country.