Aidila Razak
Sep 21, 10
7:47pm
Performance Management and Delivery Unit's (Pemandu) Economic Transformation Programme (ETP) open day was a series of hits and misses as the government made a bold attempt to sell the public on one of Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak's transformation pillars.
On the surface the event was a roaring success, attracting about 4,000 participants who packed the hall for the morning launch and forum.
The booths on each of the 12 national key economic areas were easy to navigate, and break-out sessions offered a closer look into the programme.
But participants eager to sink their teeth into more than just the free flow of food on offer were left slightly underwhelmed, as details of the so-called “cangkul (shovel)-ready” programme were noticeably missing.
For example, at the popular breakout session for the Greater KL national key economic area (NKEA), participants were told by Pemandu's NKEA director Ahmad Suhaili Idrus that many of their questions could not yet be answered.
Queried on the implementation details of the Mass Rapid Transport project that is meant to transform the public transport landscape of the city, he said, “We don't have the answer now. These questions can only be answered in a few months to come.
“You must remember that we are still in the 9th Malaysia Plan and all this is under the 10th Malaysia Plan, which will start at midnight on Dec 31, 2010,” said Ahmad Suhaili.
No answers in sight
A visit to the booths manned by members of 12 NKEA labs where these ideas were said to have sprouted also yielded few details, mainly because many of the ideas are still very much in the planning phase.
Question marks abound over the completion date of the evidently popular high speed train - said to ferry passengers between Singapore and Kuala Lumpur in two hours - with no answer in sight as feasibility studies are still under way.
“I suspect it will take a long time to come to fruition because we still have to talk to the Singapore government,” said one lab member.
Questions on details like the cost and mechanics of getting all Malaysians wired to broadband by 2015 were glossed over by another lab member, who merely said that it will happen if there is a demand.
Further probe into the specifics of the 131 entry point projects committed to by the private sector also came to naught as the companies spearheading the projects were strangely absent.
At the other extreme, some booths, like the Oil, Gas and Energy and the New Economic Model booths were so technical that expert lab members were unable to really break down the jargon and terminology.
Many participants are likely to have left either confused, or ill at ease, for example at the idea of having a nuclear reactor “somewhere we don't know yet” by 2021- a proposal that despite being fuzzy on details is evidently absolutely on the cards.
What is clear, however, is that some of the projects mooted require amendments in policy, procedure and even laws, like the unified building by-laws that the lab member of Communication Content and Infrastructure booth proposed to be amended to make broadband available in all homes.
'Fundamental issues not addressed'
Participants who managed to get hold of a lab member could also only pray that their verbal feedback is brought back to Pemandu, as feedback forms left hardly any room to say 'yea' or 'nay' to the many projects mooted, appearing to serve rather as a tool to measure scepticism.
And scepticism will be a major hurdle for Pemandu, considering the many 'hows' and 'wheres' still missing in many of the projects mooted and presented..
One person who was left unconvinced was DAP-Bukit Bendera parliamentarian Liew Chin Tong (right), who told Malaysiakini that he found the ETP “disappointing”.
“I don't think Malaysia can benefit much from this, because there is no clear direction and it does not deal with fundamental issues,” he said.
The fundamental issues that the project-based approach does not address, said Liew, are “issues of low productivity, low skills and low wages”.
He added that future growth must come from innovation, and not “big capital investment into big infrastructure toys, like mass rapid transport and nuclear (plants)” even if this investment is privately-driven.