Official arrogance will bring Najib down

When he took over as prime minister, Najib Tun Razak said he will listen to the people but his officers have turned a deaf ear to the promise with their arrogance.

COMMENT

In 2009, when Najib Tun Razak took over the country’s affairs from Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, he promised the rakyat that his government would be all ears. But two years down the road it appears that the promise was just lip service.

One such example of refusing to listen to the rakyat was displayed through the insensitive remark by the Federal Territories and Urban Well-Being Minister Raja Nong Chik Raja Zainal.

In February this year, Raja Nong Chik had admonished the Bukit Jalil estate workers who turned to him for help in trying to avoid being evicted from their homes. The minister told the residents that they should be contented with the Little India project when they wanted to negotiate compensation.

Raja Nong Chik, instead of living up to the objective of his “ambitious” sounding ministry, told the residents that they should be glad the Barisan Nasional (BN) government had spent a lot of money on the Little India project in Brickfields.

Raja Nong Chik arbitrarily offered RM23,000 each to those who had worked in the rubber estate for more than 15 years and RM11,000 for the rest.

Initially, the offer was RM11,000 for those who worked there for more than 15 years and RM6,000 for the others.

Forty-one families had asked for three acres of a 26-acre land to build low-cost terrace houses as compensation for vacating the land they had been living on for three generations.

Dewan Bandaraya Kuala Lumpur (DBKL) had acquired their land in 1980 and pledged that the appointed contractors would pay their wages and make EPF contributions for working on the rubber plantation.

But the pledge was never kept and the residents demanded that DBKL pay up the outstanding wages and EPF contributions.

The residents were equally upset that their representatives were not allowed to speak at a meeting, which was attended by Raja Nong Chik’s deputy M Saravanan and Human Resources Minister Dr S Subramaniam.

Showing more disrespect

Raja Nong Chik, it seems, only allowed the residents to voice their grievances after much objection. The residents who had been living at the Bukit Jalil estate for three generations were given a mere week to consider the offer, failing which the minister threatened to issue them with eviction notices.

It was later revealed that the land belongs to Bukit Jalil Development Sdn Bhd, a property developer. Questions were raised as to why was the BN government negotiating on behalf of a private entity, in a typical show of abuse of power.

The residents were told that upon acquiring the land, the government would build a cemetery on it. But to an independent observer, Shin Choong Men, he doubted as to whether a cemetery would really be built there.

“Are you trying to say that a private developer wants to build a cemetery on this valuable piece of real estate?” Shin asked during a Press conference on this matter.

In August this year, Sarawak’s State Land Development Minister James Masing, labelled the Penan native customary rights landowners as thieves, accusing them of stealing oil palm fruit bunches from four major government-linked oil palm plantations.

Earlier on, Masing accused the Penans of being “good story tellers” when the Penan women and girls cried rape at the hands of timber loggers.

In the case of the oil palm fruit bunches, Masing lost his head because illegal harvesting of oil palm fruits had cost Land Custody Development Authority (LCDA) and its joint-venture partners some RM33.6 million in losses.

As far as Masing was concerned, the thieves were none other than the Penans.

“Stealing is stealing, no matter how you (the landowners) try to justify it. You don’t steal from your friend,” Masing had lashed out at the Penan community.

Masing’s finger-pointing outraged the Penan community in Kampung Ugos, Jambatan Suai, in Baru Niah, who took offence and proceeded to lodge a police report against Masing.

Drop the arrogance

Penan chief Ugos Sugon, who lodged the report on behalf of his people at the Batu Niah police station on Aug 12, said Masing had no right to call them thieves.

“We are not thieves… we are not happy at being accused of stealing from our own land. We have been waiting for our dividends for a very long time.

“In February 2009, after waiting 13 years we received a cash cheque of RM500,000 to be divided among us.

“The 500 of us in Kampung Ugos are to share the RM500,000… after 13 years. It is not right,” he said.

Ugos and his people had, in 1999, agreed to jointly develop their NCR land with the LCDA and its band of private investors.

However, the “deal”, according to the villagers, was somewhat unfair to them.

Many claimed that they had not even seen the agreement. The villagers believe the joint-venture project involving their NCR lands has made millions for LCDA and the private investors “in view of the very good oil palm price for many years”.

Early this month, Tenaganita director, Irene Fernandez, criticised director-general of labour, Sheikh Yahya Sheikh Mohamed, who was quoted in The Star, as saying that Malaysia was not “desperate” for Indonesian maids and could hire maids from other countries.

“His statement smacks of arrogance. What he is saying is that since we are ‘rich’, we can move anywhere to recruit maids,” Fernandez said.

She had pointed out that Indonesian maids were turning away from Malaysia as an employment destination because of the poor treatment and official arrogance on matters concerning their welfare.

A slap to Malaysia

She said the recent decision by the Australian High Court to block the refugee swap deal between Australia and Malaysia was a slap to Malaysia’s policies and should “awaken us to change”.

Malaysia, she said, was shamelessly sliding back into exploitation and slavery as other nations move towards developed sustainability.

“The government can no longer sustain this form of modern-day slavery manifested in domestic labour.

“Employers must realise that they can no longer expect cheap labour, demand 18-hour work schedules and silence migrant workers with the support of the state.”

Two years ago, the Labour Department director-general Ismail Abdul Rahim commented that the Sexual Harassment Act “could lead to a dull and rigid environment in the workplace”.

Women, Family and Community Development Ministry revealed that between 2005 and 2008, there were 3,096 cases of sexual violence and harassment cases, including rape and molestation, reported to the police. Another 27 disciplinary cases involving the public sector were reported to the Public Service Department.

“Besides, sexual harassment in whatever forms, be it physical, verbal or psychological, was a serious offence under the Penal Code,” Women, Family and Community Development deputy minister Noriah Kasnon had said.

How should the rakyat perceive a department head like Ismail, who is least disturbed by incidences of sexual harassment at the workplace? One wonders what Ismail’s take is on the Rabia Abdul Salam case, an athlete who committed suicide 17 years ago after she was sexually harassed by her coach.

In December 2009, Immigration Department director-general Abdul Rahim Othman said a Malaysian transsexual fighting deportation from Britain would be punished for bringing “great shame” to Malaysia.

Mohamed Fazdil Min Bahari, a pre-operative transsexual known as Fatine, married a British man in a civil ceremony but was refused permanent visa on technical grounds.

Uncalled-for haughtiness

Abdul Rahim had said that once deported to Malaysia, Fatine could be banned from travelling overseas for at least two years, all because she brought “great shame” to the country.

In April this year, Agriculture and Agro-based Industry Minister, Noh Amar, who, in his capacity as the Selangor Umno deputy chief, chided urban voters for being ungrateful for the initiatives implemented by the BN government, as seen from their refusal to vote for BN in the Sarawak state polls held on April 16 this year.

Incidentally, on April 7 last year, Noh, infamous for his racist remarks, read out at the Selangor BN convention quotes from speeches of MIC and MCA leaders, in the 1960s, which praised Umno for giving citizenship to the non-Malays.

This prompted 15 Kapar MCA delegates to walk out of the convention, claiming Noh’s speech was an insult to the Chinese and Indians. DAP adviser Lim Kit Siang later raised this issue in the Dewan Rakyat demanding that the government apologise over Noh’s remark.

However, Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department, Nazri Aziz, rejected the demand and instead asked Lim to settle the matter with Noh.

The intention of harking back to incidences of “official arrogance” is to caution Najib of the arrogance festering among the government servants. Instead of serving the rakyat, the department heads show no remorse in name-calling and condemning the very people they are supposed to help, ending up making a hash of a job.

The government servants, through their uncalled-for haughtiness, have conveniently forgotten who the stakeholders really are, that is the rakyat. The carte blanche abuse of power will exert a price, more so going by Najib’s refusal to come to the defence of the rakyat and take such irresponsible department heads to task.

It remains a mystery as to for how long Najib intends to remain silent while the people are bullied under the weight of “official arrogance”.

Perhaps Najib plans to open his mouth and spew words of support just before the 13th general election. But, by then, it would have been too late to undo the damage resulting from the “official arrogance”.

Jeswan Kaur is a freelance journalist and a FMT columnist.