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Tuesday, 6 November 2012

By Stephen Ng,
It appears to me that someone is indeed lying, and MIC should now go back to ask why former councillor, A Kohilan Pillay, had failed to block the construction project in 2007, despite his and P Kamalanathan's absence from the full board meeting.

Now that the project is going ahead, both former councillors should be held accountable for their failure to protect the interest of the Indians.

Firstly, why were they absent for something as important as the full board meeting, especially when it involved an important issue like protecting the Batu Caves, if this was ever at the heart of MIC in the first place?

Secondly, despite their absence, why did the duo not raise this issue up again after the approval was given by the full board?

Did they even write in officially to object against the project? I am sure within the MIC, there is still room to raise up the subject all the way to the president himself.

Now for former MIC president Samy Vellu to suddenly wake up and be involved in a public demonstration, and for the duo to claim that it was only a planning approval that was made by the full MPS board, and not making noise over it, is like telling the whole world that the Earth is square.

Thirdly, why did the full board approve the project despite it having social, religious and environmental implications?

In the first place, the Department of Environment had already stated its objections against the project.

The full board was then made of representatives from BN-linked political parties.

Did they not have any consideration towards the sensitivities of the Hindu community and did they think they were too powerful that no one could stand in their way to stop the project?

What irks me is to see the former MIC president himself leading the demonstration!

And the lack of sincerity in this entire issue when MIC is supposed to protect the interests of the Hindu community, in much the same way MCA is supposed to protect the interest of the Chinese.

But what history tells us is that both parties are too engrossed with power struggles so much so they has failed utterly in their role as race-based parties.

As a Malaysian citizen, I totally reject race-based political parties. It is time for us as a country to look at ourselves objectively, putting aside the emotional side of things. We are lagging behind countries like Indonesia, Thailand and Vietnam.

If I were a foreign investor, where would I put my money?

We should be grateful that the old investors are still having confidence in our economy, but the newer ones see us as a small economy, with too many political and policy controls over the business sector.

If we try, for the sake of winning Selangor, to apply pressure on the Selangor state government now to withdraw the project, and pay millions of ringgits to compensate the developer, Selangor taxpayers are not going to take it easy on the MIC.

In particular, on these two former MPS councillors and the entire BN which made up the full board, for their failure to stop the project right from the beginning.

We are not going to pay for their failure without lashing back at them.

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