the extent of disunity

Most of the topics discussed here will only be mentioned in kopitiams or through casual talk, or in this case in the online world. It is deemed as too "sensitive" to be blatantly advertised over mainstream media.

So how serious is disunity? It is not limited to what we call racial or cultural tolerance (or intolerance, whichever one may prefer). In this beloved country, disunity is everywhere. Take for example the fiasco of the local highway concessionaire PLUS (Projek Lebuhraya Utara Selatan), the corporation responsible for the upkeep and maintenance of various networks of expressways, chief of those is the main artery of the nation: the North South Expressway (NSE).

As the original news links have expired (this happened some time in January), we have to rely on feeds here and here. PLUS claims to be on the losing side of a syndicate responsible for cheating on their toll charges, paying only a minimal fraction of the required toll amount. To alleviate the corporation's "suffering", they arbitrarily impose "overstay fines" to suspected toll cheats.

Of course, as Malaysians are very dependant upon personal transportation, and to an extent expressways (most roads are tolled), motorists have expressed dissatisfaction and disgust, more so when PLUS had not too long before increased their toll charges by 10%. Yes they can do that due to a lopsided agreement signed between the concessionaire and the government. In fact, they can do so until the year 2030.

Months of deliberation later, the government has this to say. Much airtime is given to the "breaking news" in the two main English newspapers here and here. So we have the situation where the government, instead of helping to ease the burden of its taxpayers, decides to give the leeway and benefits to PLUS, a mega corporation that seems to be solely interested in figures and bottom lines. The proof is in the icing.

What does this have to do with disunity?

The government tries to pacify the people by repeating the generic mantra, which essentially can be summed as such: "If we don't let PLUS do what they want, they will lose money, and we have to compensate them."

But hold on a minute. Any person who understands the basics of economics would know that running a business is not 100% risk-free. There will be situations where you will encounter some leakage in your profit machine. In a business, if this happens, you plug the leak from the inside. In the case of PLUS, it plugs it from the outside, and not by their own efforts, judging from their calls to the government to allow them to impose these overstay fines, instead of spending more time and effort developing counter measures to prevent toll cheats from striking.

DAP describes this as the grand mother of all piratisation in this country, obviously poking fun of Malaysia's grand privatisation strategy. In a recent article, this was mentioned: "if PLUS is to be allowed to fine motorists for “overstaying” in the NSE, PLUS must also be required to compensate motorists when they are held up on the expressway for an excessively long period because of massive traffic jams in violation of its pledge to provide a “smooth, safe and fast journey."

The disunity here is the unfair treatment of the government towards its citizens, and the preferrential treatment provided to the corporation. It remains baffling why millions of loyal taxpayers have to be punished for the inefficiencies of the concessionaire, which serves only a select few shareholders. And it also remains a mystery how the government can be so quick to modify existing laws to allow a private corporation to impose fines on its users (when this should be in the jurisdiction of local authorities), and at the same time be ignorant to the countless calls to reinstate local government elections.

The government should try to look at things from the People's perspective. Surely the ministers and their respective staff have sufficient eyes and ears to see and hear the grouses of the public. Doesn't the voice of the People matter to them any more? This type if disunity is even more disasterous to the nation as a whole, because if it is allowed to continue, Malaysia will become an exclusive nation, where the executives are those with well-connected companies that have the arbitrary authority to bail out their own failures by taking what is rightfully the People's. What is the point of forming a government then, if not to run the nation and serve the people!

This decision to modify the law to suit the whims of the corporation may inevitably set the precedence for future incidents to happen. Who knows, if at any time the national energy provider is in financial difficulties, or if the newly formed Selangor water management company finds it difficult to float in stormy weather, we might have to endure another round of "compensation".

The only form of unity I see from this fiasco is from the common voices of utter dissatisfaction.