His Majesty steps in
The following news report by M’sian columnist Wong Chun Wai (I like him, by the way) highlights something very, very wrong with my country.
Now, it is a very good thing for the ruler to personally come down to deal with problems like this. (Not to be disrespectful and unneighbourly to my Singaporean friends, but do you see President SR Nathan doing the same thing?) It shows that the Sultan of Selangor is no mere figure-head of the state.
This billboard issue has been in the news for a long stretch now. And it has become an open secret that a rat is lurking somewhere. You see the problem with open secrets is that the rat can’t be just killed and everybody goes home happy. Even if somebody took the blame, who is going to handle the costs of tearing down those billboards? And if nobody will, those billboard still stay up all the same. As they say (in relationships), its complicated.
It is so sad that corruption has become so prevalent that it has become accepted as a way of life. Now MPs (MP for Jasin vs customs DG) can be corrupt and declare on national television that they have done nothing wrong. This is sickening to the core.
The rakyat is really being held hostage by unelected people who have been given power (i.e. the city councils.) It really goes to show that the system of accountability and governance is M’sia is broken.
