Let Proton die – Lok Wing Kong

Former prime minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohammad has done many wrongs, one of which is the national car Proton.

After more than 30 years, the Proton has not yet achieved good quality, reliability and outstanding design to compete domestically and globally.

Why? It is because the engineers who were sent to Japan to learn under “Look East” policy did not learn because they had no brain to learn? This is due to the failure of our education system producing rubbish graduates.

South Korean cars started about the same time as the Proton, and just look at these Korean cars, Proton is pale in comparison. What a shame!

Dr Mahathir still has the gut to say that Malaysia can also make airplanes to compete with the Boeing or the Airbus. This is the typical character and mentality of Bolehland.

Heavy taxes on foreign cars are imposed so that the price of Proton cars is made competitive in the local markets and heavily subsidised Proton cars sold overseas.

It has been reported that cars in Malaysia are the most expensive in the world.  Without the distorted and heavy taxes, Proton would have been closed long ago.

Many cronies have been made filthy rich by Approved Permits. This has caused tremendous financial hardship to the rakyat who has the highest household debt.
These cronies are mainly the goons in Umno Baru, Dr Mahathir is one of them. The BN government under Najib is afraid to offend them. Therefore, although Proton is bleeding heavily, the government dares not withdraw the APs and let it die.

Dr Mahathir has recently said that if Proton cannot compete, it is better to let it die. It is doubtful that he wants his pet project going down.

Many believe that the powers will “switch off” Proton's life support machine when Dr Mahathir is no more around. If it is done now, he would die of heart attack.  Lim Kit Siang wishes him to live a long life. So let the Proton man live as long as he likes.

When Proton dies, there will be domino effects. Many people directly or indirectly related to Proton will fall. These people are related to the Umnoputra goons, therefore the powers that be would prefer to spoonfeed them rather than kill them.

Hence it is expected that the soon-to-be announced National Car Policy  will have very little changes.

It is better to let Proton die now rather than keep it on life support to let the rakyat suffer. Our national debt is high at about 54% and it is still going up unabated.

To let Proton die now is the best thing the BN government would have done since independence. One huge leakage would have been plugged.