Sorry For The Absence

I would like to express my apologies to all who had been following this blog over the past year. I have not blogged for about a month now. This is because there had been numerous engagements, meetings and now the Parliament session. I would be back soon with more thoughts. Thank you for your attention.

COA RULES FOR ZAMBRY

Below are two news stories, which would make headlines tomorrow, picked-up from Bernama due to their magnitude. The Court of Appeal has ruled that BN's Zambry is the rightful Menteri Besar of Perak.
The second is the death of a state assemblyman in Kelantan. This would pave way for another by-election. The BN, I feel, should participate in this by-election as it was due to natural causes.

PUTRAJAYA, May 22 -- A three-man bench of the Court of Appeal, in a unanimous decision, today declared Datuk Seri Dr Zambry Abdul Kadir as the rightful menteri besar of Perak.
The court held that the order made by the High Court on May 11, in declaring Datuk Seri Mohammad Nizar Jamaluddin as the legitimate menteri besar, was wrong and set aside that decision.
"The learned High Court judge had failed to properly and adequately appreciate the entire evidence before him, and that rendered the decision as wrong," said Justice Datuk Md Raus Shariff, who sat with Justices Datuk Zainun Ali and Datuk Ahmad Maarop.
Both Mohammad Nizar and Zambry were not present in court today.

KOTA BAHARU, May 22 -- Manik Urai state assemblyman Ismail Yaacob died early today of a heart attack. He was 60.
Ismail, one of the longest-serving PAS elected representatives in Kelantan, died at 5.55am at the Raja Perempuan Zainab II Hospital here. He was admitted to the hospital in April.
Ismail leaves a wife, Siti Zaharah Ibrahim, and 10 children. The burial will be held after the Friday prayers today.
Ismail, who was deputy head of the PAS Kuala Krai Division, won the Manik Urai state seat in the general election in 1985 and had been the elected representative there for five terms.
He did not contest the seat in the general election in 2004, paving the way for Zamzuri Mat Lazim to be the elected representative.
Ismail contested the seat again in the general election last year and defeated Mohamed Zulkifli Omar of the Barisan Nasional (BN) with a majority of 1,352 votes.

The Kampung Pandan squatter settlement problem is being now exploited. Some people have gone around to say that these squatters, who had been asked to vacate their premises to allow the government to build new homes for the people, would not be allowed back into the area.
This is totally wrong as after some 39-years there is a solution to their housing woes. Below is an article by Bernama on the problem, which had been on-going all this while.

KUALA LUMPUR, May 6 (Bernama) -- Kuala Lumpur City Hall (DBKL) will look
into requests from Indian senior citizens and single mothers in Kampung Pandan
for temporary accommodations in the capital until a flat built for them is
completed.
Deputy Federal Territories Minister Datuk M.Saravanan said they might be put
up in Cochrane or Sentul but it would depend on the availability of vacant
houses.
He said DBKL had earlier ordered the squatters to be relocated to Bukit
Jalil as a temporary measure.
"DBKL had assured the squatters that the flat will be built at the squatters
settlement in Kampung Pandan.
"A working paper on the project had been submitted to the Economic Planning
Unit," he told reporters after attending the presentation of the Titiwangsa
Education Foundation excellent awards here today.
Titiwangsa Education Foundation chairman Datuk Astaman Abdul Aziz said Sijil
Pelajaran Malaysia and Sijil Tinggi Pelajaran Malaysia outstanding students
received RM500 each while Penilaian Menengah Rendah students (RM100) and Ujian
Pencapaian Sekolah Rendah students (RM50).

p/s: As for the doctors out there who still bear a grudge against me all I can say is go ahead try make the service better. Prove me wrong!

Emergency Department Episode

Last Sunday, I was at the Kuala Lumpur Hospital Emergency Unit to visit someone who had knocked into my car earlier in the morning. Many would have known what had transpired there.
I waited for about a few minutes and sensing that none of the patients waiting outside were called-in, I knocked on the treatment room door and walked in. To my dismay I found two doctors -- one reading newspapers and the other doing his own thing.
I could not digest this because, there were people waiting outside and these doctors were taking their own time. It so happened that a Bernama reporter was at hand witnessing the whole incident without my knowledge. After a while, I was approached by the reporter who got a few quotes from me on the incident and subsequently wrote a story about it.
It was not my intention to blow this issue out of propotion but many would agree with me that the level of service rendered at our government run hospitals, especially the emergency unit, needs a major overhaul.
I have spoken to the Health Minister about it who was fast in coming out with an investigation report on the matter. Thank you sir.
All I wanted was to improve the level of service at government agencies and departments but when I see for myself the suffering of people, it is just too much to bear. We can come out of reports and studies but the bottom line is that the people are quite irked with the civil sector service level, at least in some departments. My aim was only one and not political in nature. Thank you for your attention.

THE PENANTI QUESTION MARK

Last week the Penanti state assembly seat in Penang was declared vacant by Parti Keadilan Rakyat (PKR) through a faxed statement to the media. The statement said that the incumbent to the seat Mohammad Fairus Khairuddin has resigned as ADUN. The statement was actually a letter by Fairus himself declaring the seat vacant. The Election Commission had also come out to say that by-election date for the seat would be announced on Friday.
However, there was a sudden announcement by Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak stating that the BN might not contest the seat. While I have to accept the Barisan Nasional top leadership's decision on the matter, I personally feel that the seat should be contested by the ruling coalition.
Although it could be a waste of public funds and playing into the hands of the political shadow play of the PKR, the BN should and must not forsake the thousands of voters in the constituency, who had faithfully voted the BN in the past.
In the five by-elections we have seen so far, the BN cannot be pushed aside as it too had garnered a good number of voters. The contest has always been close, with the opposition not winning more than 3,000 votes.
Although the opposition won four of the five by-elections, the BN too had shown it still had support of the people although it was not the majority. The traditional BN voters should not be let down. In the by-elections so far, none of BN candidates lost their deposits or fared really bad. This shows that the BN is in the hearts and mind of many people, though they are not the majority. So, why let these people down by not contesting? I feel, apart from this reason, there was many other reasons why the BN should contest the seat.
We should also respect the democratic process, which the BN had propounded again and again in the past. What the ruling coalition should do is to amend the current election laws, so that political parties do not abuse democracy through resignation of elected representatives. This would be better than snubbing any by-election.
Thank you for your attention.

p/s: Many will say no need to contest because BN is going to lose anyway. For me that's a lame excuse. Nothing is certain until you go to the ballots!