Penang:A Gem Or A White Man's Bluff?

Hantu Laut

Yes! I was there few months ago.

Penang is different from the rest of the Peninsula, it has its own characters and charms, a laid back and quaint place, more a resort type destination rather than an industrial city with a burgeoning economy.Very Chinese, a piece of chinoiserie of some kind, keeping much of its old traditions.

Its hawker's foods are lusciously tasty and cheap.It retained more of its colonial past while the rest of the Peninsula tried very hard to erase it and had succeeded in doing so.

More like my home state Sabah, unpretentious, rustic, friendly, hospitable and no hang-ups.

It was once called the "Pearl of the Orient" before other more enchanting destinations like Bali, Phuket and many others in the region, discovered and developed more rapidly that had put it back in the backwater.

The streets are much cleaner than before but the waterfront facing the Esplanade is still littered with rubbish of all kinds.....discarded plastic bottles,plastic bags and animal carcasses are eyesores disfiguring the waterfront.

Former Prime Minister Mahathir Mohammad while still the PM then, disgusted with its dirtiness, called it the "Rubbish of the Orient". The man who once ran this tiny island with negligence is still in the Federal cabinet. I need not mention his name.

The current state government is doing an excellent job trying to revive Penang's past glory to lure back the tourists and had embarked on excellent tourism promotion (paid for or otherwise).Read this New York Times article on Penang.

White men loves this kind of place.

My stay at the Hard Rock Hotel was pleasant and there were more domestic tourists than foreign tourists when I was there.

My wife says, probably, off-peak season.

Maybe, I'll make another visit a year from now to see whether Penang has weathered well under Pakatan's care.

There Is No Clean Town In Sabah, Stupid !

Hantu Laut

Typical bumiputra denial syndrome.

Minister of Tourism Culture and Environment Masidi Manjun recent remark that Semporna is the dirtiest town in Sabah has stirred the hornet's nest with tongue-lashing responses from the local assemblyman and other Sempornians.

Sulabayan assemblyman Harman Mohammad insisted that Semporna is not the dirtiest town.As a matter of fact, he said the town has won two awards in 2007 and 2008 for being the second cleanest town and for good administration.

That must be a bloody joke and those who gave the award must either have blinkers on or just used to sight of squalor and can't differentiate what is cleanliness.

There is no clean town in Sabah per se.How can there be the cleanest or second cleanest.All Sabah towns are bloody dirty including Kundasang where Masidi Manjun came from which is close proximity to World Heritage Kinabalu National Park. It could have been a mini Swiss Alps instead of a shit hole.Obviously, when your eyes are used to looking at filth, filth is not dirty.

Masidi is right Semporna is dirty, Kundasang is dirtier.Wherever, the town council is run by aborigines they are the same......all are dirty.

Go to smaller towns like Kota Belud, Tuaran,Keningau, they are bloody disgrace.District Officers who usually head the local councils are absolutely lazy and couldn't care less.How much does it takes the will to clean up such small towns.

Neither is Kota Kinabalu clean, there are pockets of dirty areas all over the place.Sembulan, smack in the middle of the city, takes the trophy for being the dirtiest .It is one huge sewer and a big eyesore.

Kota Kinabalu seriously needs an extensive urban renewal scheme.Hopefully, the next mayor would be an innovator of constructive urban renewal and not constructor of billboards.

Sembulan, the hovel of KK

The Datu Bandar shouldn't be too happy when some idiots say KK is clean. I am sorry, by my standard, it is not clean.Slightly better than the previous Datu Bandar but not good enough.

Try the Water Front when the tide is out.The tourists really love the smell of our shit and the flotsam and jetsam in the waters.

The city roads are dangerous to drive on at night.Poor street lighting and absence or faded white line on major roads make driving at night and rainy days utterly dangerous.

Road markers should be consistently clear to motorists but in Sabah you have to drive with your instinct especially at night and rainy days or end up hitting the kerb that would send your car flying off the road.It becomes even more dangerous when it rains at night.

Why is it that every time our politicians talked about cleanliness they always think of the tourists.

To hell with the tourists, what about us Sabahans, the taxpayers, the ratepayers, don't you think we deserved much more than the tourists.

What are all these idiots shouting about.Every town in Sabah is a shit hole.Non can pass any standard of cleanliness.

Until they can learn how to clean their backsides there will be no clean town in Sabah.

Stop bickering you bunch of assholes and start cleaning your backsides first.

Drowning In The Sea Of Idiocy

Hantu Laut

Sometimes, you wonder whether some of our Federal ministers know what they are doing and whether they know the boundary of their jurisdiction.Where they should poke their nose and where they shouldn't.

I am surprise that the Federal Minister of Tourism Azalina Othman jumped on the bandwagon without first checking her facts.What makes she think she has jurisdiction over land matters and development in Sabah.These are state matters and she should buzz off.Simply reading something in the newspaper and jumping to conclusion that something was very wrong with the development and making stupid statement in the media just to seek publicity goes to show that she has poor grasp of her functions and responsibilities.

“I am personally unhappy because I believe that the place is best left untouched" she said.How much does she know about Sabah let alone Mabul and Sipadan. Does she know there were at least four resorts built over waters in Mabul and no one made any noise before. As a politician can't she tell between a politically motivated action and those that really concern the environment.

Mabul reef was bombed to smithereens before those resorts came to Mabul.Every bit of coral was blown to pieces and in some area one can only see white patches of broken corals.

Clean your own backyard first before you start poking you nose into something that doesn't concern you.

Only the Prime Minister can talk or instruct the Chief Minister of Sabah by virtue of it being under the BN Government and the PM is the ultimate boss.Other Federal Ministers have no right to tell the CM what to do on state matters.They are below him in protocol when they come to Sabah.It goes without saying Sabahans being more cultured and more civilised in manners (except Bung Mukthar) always give due respect and show of hospitality not only to Federal ministers but to anyone who come to visit the state.Unfortunately, some are just too moronic to understand this simple social etiquette and mistook it as they are superior in rank.

If Sabah is under the opposition like Penang,Kelantan,Perak,Kedah and Selangor even the PM has no power or authority to interfere in state matters.In fact Sabah and Sarawak have bigger autonomy in state matters than other states in Malaysia.Those were conditions set by the two Bornean states when Malaysia was formed.

How bright can one be to have the audacity to propose the building of a sport complex in London at the expense of the Malaysian taxpayers on a mindless reasoning of training our athletes to challenge hypothermia to acclimatise them to polar climatic conditions.

So, Azalina know you stuff first before you start barking up the wrong tree.It is people like you that put Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi in a badlight.

Sabah has its own Minister of Tourism.You are complementary.

In Sabah, we call this kind of action 'temberang'.

Najib: Think Again !

Hantu Laut

The Deputy Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak said the government has postponed its decision to ban sale of fuel to foreign registered cars within 50 miles radius of any border which was supposed to commence on Friday. It ultimately aims to increase the price of fuel throughout the country for foreign cars.

The reason for the postponement was not stated but it is safe to assume that the government are not sure how to go about doing it and the repercussions it may have on other industry with possible negative outflow on tourism.

The idea of having separate pumps for foreign cars would require additional capital expenditure and may lead to abuses by dishonest dealers who still can sell the cheaper fuel at their own price to foreign cars, cheaper than the fixed price for foreign cars but slightly more than the domestic price and pocket the difference in pricing.The Singaporeans and Thais would be happy to collaborate to get the cheaper fuel and make the dealer slightly richer. Do not underestimates Malaysians tendency and capacity for cheating and do not overestimates the effectiveness of our enforcement authorities. Most of the time the crooks got away.

Corruption, smuggling, abuse of power are just some of the examples of cheating in this country, which run into billions of ringgits every year.

A civil servant friend once told me how he is getting sick of politicians making high moral sounding speeches telling civil servants to discharge their duties honestly and not to be corrupted. He said "I get sick in the stomach every time I listen to those bastards telling us not to be corrupted as if we don't know that they are stealing billions from the nation like there is no tomorrow.They are just like fishes, when it starting to rot, it stinks at the head and than the rest of the body follows. They are the heads, we, the civil servants are the bodies, when they stinks, we stinks too". He said if the politicians are honest, uncorruptable and dedicated, majority of civil servants would follow suit.It's called leading by examples but, unfortunately, that has never been the case.

Would it be a wise move to have two-pricing system, one for domestic car and the other for foreign cars and what would be the saving in monetary term or would it have a negative impact on tourism in the country?

The top tourist arrivals by nationality in 2007 are shown below:

Singapore 10,492,692
Indonesia 1,804,535
Thailand 1,625,698
Brunei 1,172,154
China 689,293

(Source:Malaysia Hotel News)

Singaporeans are the biggest contributor to our tourism dollar.

Assuming 80% of Singaporeans,Thais and Bruneians entered the country by roads in cars,coaches and by trains.

There were 10,632,251 visitors in 2007. Assuming only 50% of the figure were true paying tourists,we would still have 5,316,125 visitors, majority of which probably came in their own cars. Let say we put a hypothetical figure of 3 persons to a car, we would have 1,772,041 cars entering the country and assuming they spend an average of RM300.00 on petrol per car, the total bill at current price would be RM532 million per year for foreign cars.Assuming the government increases the pump price for foreign cars by 100%, the total bill would be in the region of RM1.064 billions per year unsubsidised.

The total tourist receipts for 2007 was RM46.1 billions.It is safe to assume that 50-60% of the receipts were contributed mainly by Singaporeans,Thais and the other top arrivals.That's a whopping RM23 billion or more in tourism money, just losing 10% 0f it would mean RM2.3 billion gone, which is much more than the total revised fuel bill.

The net benefits to the government by increasing the price of petrol for foreign cars seemed negligible and not worth the effort.On the other hand it may loses the spin-offs from tourism if there were to be reduction of tourist arrivals due to the higher cost of fuel.

Government should not just look at what it pays directly out of the subsidy but should look at the bigger picture of the spin-offs from the industry.

To control and lessen the selling of subsidised fuel to foreign cars, the government should make it mandatory for all foreign cars entering the country to have minimum 3/4 tank of petrol.Any car that failed to comply with the ruling should be fined on the spot with a fixed amount set by the government.

With the 3/4 tank ruling those trying to buy cheap fuel at border towns would be weeded out and the bona fide tourists wouldn't be punished and the country continue to get its tourism spin-offs.

The Deputy Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak said that Singaporeans are saying they don't mind paying the market rate.That's probably just lip service. The Singapore government for sure don't want the Singaporeans to come to Malaysia to spend their money here.Don't forget they have 3/4 tank ruling on Singapore cars leaving the island for Malaysia for many years now.

The best solution is to remove the entire subsidy on petrol and diesel and have one price structure.The government should only keep the subsidy on essential items such as cooking gas, rice and other essential foodstuffs for the sake of the poor and those in the low income bracket.

The RM56 billion subsidy spent on petrol and diesel is more than sufficient to improve the public transportation systems in the major cities and towns which will ease the burden of car ownership of those in the lower and middle income group.

Many Malaysians in that income group are living beyond their means, a culture infused during the Mahathir's era of making car ownership easily available to those who hardly can afford it, just to satisfy his industrialisation programme and show the world 'Malaysia Boleh' . Removing the subsidy on petrol and diesel and providing the people with better public transport would help those foolish Malaysians to get rid of the car they can ill afford.

Those in the lower income group spent over 50% of their monthly income to service the repayment,maintenance and repair of their cars with very little left for food, clothing and medical care. Some took to crime to supplement their income.

It is a complete fallacy to think that the poor and those in the lower income group are the one who benefited from the subsidy. If you don't own a car the price of petrol or diesel will have no impact on your daily lives other than the slight increase in the costs of living, the indirect results of the higher fuel cost.

The subsidised fuel are more benefiting to the upper middle class and wealthy Malaysians, those with their posh gas-guzzling monsters and multiple cars owners.

Maybe, now is the time to teach Malaysians how not to live with a subsidy mentality.

Footnote:
(For a small country, population of 380,000, the figure for Brunei seems odd.With that figure every Bruneian visited Malaysia an average of 3 times in 2007.The only plausible explanation, those are Bruneians going to and fro to the other side of Brunei separated by Limbang in Sarawak. They were all not tourists in the real sense, went through Malaysian Immigration in Sarawak, and were included in Malaysia's fallacious and sexed up statistics as tourists). See map below.