I knew this would happen.
Just when KTMB is doing well and packing in passengers into new electric trains after billions of public funds were spent on double tracking, along comes Transport Minister Liow Tiong Lai with an announcement that the authorities plan to allow private companies, apart from KTM, to operate rail services on inter-city routes.
The ferry dis-service in Penang is ridiculous! Penang Forum has just released this urgent statement:
The Penang Forum Steering Committee is heartened that the federally controlled Penang Port Commission has requested the privatised Penang Port Sdn Bhd to postpone the plan to reduce the ferry service that was scheduled to take effect on 1 January 2016.
LKIM (Malaysians Fisheries Development Board), please do something about this. What are you doing to protect the livelihoods of the fishermen there? Who is responsible for this enivironmental disaster?
A temporary reprieve (see below).
It is time to step up the pressure against the federal Transport Ministry, the federally controlled Penang Port Commission, and the privatised Penang Port Sdn Bhd, which is linked to Sea Terminal under Syed Mokhtar Al-Bukhary.
We are not just demanding that the ferries not be reduced from 1 January. We want MORE ferries. If not, hand over the ferry service to the Penang state government.
The financing model for the Penang transport masterplan and the very plan itself appears to be fundamentally flawed.
For a start, it is the fishermen of Penang who will have to bear a disproportionate amount of the cost in the form of their very livelihoods.
A ban on Indonesian metal ore exports and the weaker ringgit and expanded alumina refinery capacity in China has led to a surge in Malaysian bauxite exports.
Penangites are utterly fed up and disgusted with the pathetic ferry service that the privatised Penang Port Sdn Bhd is providing. For this the Transport Minister must take full responsibility.
In a rare landmark visit to a prominent mosque, a delegation of Christians, led by Bishop Sebastian Francis, visited the Abdullah Fahim Mosque in Bertam in Province Wellesley on 14 December 2015.
Some quarters appear to be out to ratchet up tensions, taking the law into their own hands.
While we lament the terrible congestion on the urban roads in the peninsula, spare a thought for motorists in Sarawak using this horribly muddy road from Miri to Marudi.