The Pearl of the Orient not so pearly any more

What I can’t understand is, while the federal government terminated Penang’s free port status in 1969 and withdrew Terengganu’s oil royalty in 1999 (or rather in 2000, a few months after the state fell in November 1999) because the opposition had won those states, when these two states went back to the ruling party Penang’s free port status and Terengganu’s oil royalty were never reinstated.

THE CORRIDORS OF POWER

Raja Petra Kamarudin

Reinstate free port status to Penang Port, government told

(Bernama) - Reinstating free port status to Penang Port will stimulate economic activity in diverse sectors in the state, said Penang Chinese Assembly Hall chairman Datuk Lam Wu Chong.

He said many sectors, particularly the tourism sector, would benefit immensely if the free port status was reinstated.

"Economic activities will flourish if Penang was granted the status. Penang will emerge as a shopping haven and a tourist paradise.

"I believe Penangites are looking forward to the reinstatement of the status," he said at the Chinese New Year open house hosted by the assembly.

Yang Dipertua Negeri Tun Abdul Rahman Abbas, his wife, Toh Puan Majimor Shariff, Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Abdul Razak, former Prime Minister Tun Abdullah Ahmad Badawi and Chief Minister Lim Guan Eng attended the open house.

Lam said the state economy needed injection of fresh economic elements to provide the impetus for a vibrant economy.

He said reports from professionals showed Penang's economy, which relied heavily on the industrial sector, was losing its competitive edge and this has caused the economy to slow down.

Penang has been a free port since the colonial days until the status was revoked in 1969.

On another matter, Lam said Penangites supported the plan to introduce monorail services as the move would considerably ease traffic congestion which has become a major problem in the state.

"Traffic woes have become a major concern to Penangites. A permanent solution has to be found for this problem. This must be addressed soon.

"If we look at major cities around the world, the cities have adequate traffic systems, subways or underground train services to help ease traffic congestion," he added.

Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Abdul Razak had recently promised a monorail service for Penang if the Barisan Nasional (BN) was given the mandate to govern the state in the soon-to-be-held 13th general election.

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What the Penang Chinese Assembly Hall chairman, Lam Wu Chong, said is a subject close to my heart because I have been saying the same thing since way back in the 1970s. Now, after 40 years, someone else is saying the same thing.

I always tell my friends that I love Penang of the 1950s and 1960s but not the Penang of today. In fact, the same applies to Port Dickson, Cameron Highlands, Frasers Hill, and so on. All these places have lost their charm. They no longer have ‘character’. They are nothing like what I remember them to be before and soon afterMerdeka.

When we were kids  -- soon after Merdeka when my grandfather was the Governor of Penang -- we would spend two weeks every December holidaying in Penang. One week would be spent on the beach and another week in Bel Retiro up on Penang Hill (the house when Tunku Abdul Rahman would stay when he was in Penang).

Bel Retiro, Penang Hill

It was paradise and we would look forward to our year-end holidays in Penang. I wished we could have lived in Penang and not have to go back to Kuala Lumpur. The beach was superb. Penang Hill was lovely. And you can’t beat the shopping in Penang. We would never go to Singapore because Singapore could never beat the shopping in Penang.

Then, in 1969, Penang fell to the opposition. And then Penang’s free port status was terminated. Penang was no longer the shoppers’ paradise like it used to be. And what a shame indeed! This was also what happened when Terengganu fell to the opposition 30 years later in 1999. The federal government withdrew the oil royalty and brought the state to its knees.

What I can’t understand is, while the federal government terminated Penang’s free port status in 1969 and withdrew Terengganu’s oil royalty in 1999 (or rather in 2000, a few months after the state fell in November 1999) because the opposition had won those states, when these two states went back to the ruling party Penang’s free port status and Terengganu’s oil royalty were never reinstated.

And why was this?

Penang had been established as a free port back when Captain Francis Light first conned the island from the Sultan of Kedah. If you read the (Malaysian) history books, they will tell you that Penang was a deserted island that was founded in 1790 after Captain Francis Light of the East India Company leased it from Sultan Abdullah Mukarram Shah of Kedah. That is as true as the story that Yap Ah Loy founded Kuala Lumpur in 1873 or that Umno fought the British in 1946 to gain Merdeka for Malaya in 1957.

Actually, Admiral Cheng Ho of the Ming Dynasty, who went to Malacca in the 1400s, reported the existence of an island called Penang in "The Nautical Charts of Zheng He". At that time China and Penang were already engaged in trade. (Does this surprise you? -- because you did not learn about this in Malaysian schools).

Hence Penang already existed since the 1400s and was not ‘founded’ 300-400 years later, as what we are told. Furthermore, in April 1591, privateer (the politically-correct word for ‘pirate’) Sir James Lancaster sailed theEdward Bonadventure from Plymouth and reached Penang in June 1592.

He returned to England in May 1594 after two years of plundering the island and all the ships that sailed nearby (not called ‘piracy’ though, since Lancaster was a ‘privateer’ and not a ‘pirate’ -- now do you know why ‘privatisation’ is called ‘piratisation’?).

And all this happened hundreds of years before Francis Light was supposed to have founded Penang.

Anyway, what may be noteworthy about Francis Light is he gave Penang free port status (as if it was his kuasato do that). Then, almost 180 years later, when Penang fell to the opposition, the island’s free port status was removed and, soon after that, Singapore became the new shoppers’ paradise.

By the mid-1970s, we no longer bothered to go to Penang. Instead, we went to Singapore to shop.

I first knew Dr Ibrahim Saad when he was Anwar Ibrahim’s Political Secretary at the Ministry of Youth and Sports. In 1990, Ibrahim Saad contested the Bukit Gelugor state seat in Penang and won. He was then appointed the Deputy Chief Minister of Penang.

Soon after that I made a trip to Penang and met Ibrahim Saad and his wife for dinner. I then asked him why don’t the federal government re-establish Penang as a free port and give Singapore a run for its money, like how it used to be before the 1970s.

And this was what Ibrahim Saad told me.

He said he had in fact raised this matter with his boss, Anwar Ibrahim, but Anwar told him: what for? It will only make the Chinese rich. All the businesses in Penang are owned by the Chinese, not by the Malays. So the Malays are not going to benefit from Penang’s free port status. Might as well the government tax all imports and earn some revenue.

When politics overrides economic decisions then over the long term the country will suffer. Do you know that over the last five years about 12 million tourists a year visit Singapore? More than two million of these tourists are from Indonesia while roughly a million each are from China, Malaysia, Australia and India.

Hence about half the tourists are from just five countries with the other half are from Japan, the Philippines, Thailand, Hong Kong, the UK, the US and other countries from Europe and Asia. And shopping is the main attraction of Singapore, like what Penang was once before politics overtook common sense.

And don’t tell me that this is why we need to change the government because some of these ‘decision-makers’ who once were in the government are now in the opposition.