What Have Perakians Done To Deserve Ahmad Faizal Azumu, the Perak MB?

Multatuli, like most Perakians, is furious, that the Perak MB has made another spectacular blunder.

When will Putrajaya and the Kinta palace understand and comprehend, that Ahmad Faizal Azumu does not have the support of the people of Perak?

Multatuli: Let’s not beat around the bush. I will begin this essay at the end which conclusion is: Sack Faizal Azumu Now!

Enough is enough.

We can put up with his harebrain schemes like a New Airport or even his grandiose dream of a Space Centre or even giving a contract to a two ringgit company; but he has stepped over the line this time.

The Perak Government has reportedly taken away land from hard working small farmers who have been tilling the land for four decades to give to 39 footballers and officials for winning the Malaya Cup.

There are several issues that need to be considered here.

How did the footballers help the people of Perak?

Farmers are the ones who put food on our table. Those in the Ulu Chemor, Ulu Kinta district supply fresh vegetables to Ipoh. Already farmers have been turfted out in another area  – Changkat Kinding – where a housing development is coming up. This action of the State Government will result in higher price vegetables in Ipoh.

If the State Government is forward thinking, it should be alienating more land for farming not take them away.

That is one point. The other point raised by the small farmers is if the State wants to reward the footballers why not give land owned by state-owned corporations like Perbadanan Kemajuan Negeri Perak (PKNP), MB Inc, State Secretary Incorporated (SSI).

For that matter Ahmad Faizal should ask former politicians who rewarded themselves lots of valuable land to give up their undeserved lucre to these farmers. There are lots of land in the Ampang area near the Iskandar Polo Club which the state can give. Azumu knows this well.

Without taking this argument further as to which land to give; we should ask ourselves this very fundamental question: Why must footballers who are paid to play be rewarded? They are paid princely sums to kick a ball around, is that not enough? I can understand giving land to sportsmen and women in the days when they did it for the love of the sport and for the honour of representing their state or country. I wonder if Ng Boon Bee and Tan Yee Khan (badminton) and Wong Kong Leong (football) as well as others in different sports ever got anything for winning even higher honours than the Malaysia Cup.

Frankly we pamper our sportsmen/women too much – thousands of ringgit for winning this, land for that and Datoship for doing what they should be doing. I don’t mind the latter because it costs nothing.

Politicians must stop using the people’s money and  assets irresponsibly.

Did not help the Orang Asli

When the Orang Asli’s hereditary land is ‘stolen’ by loggers and non-Muslims find it hard to get state land for their places of worship or burial (hence commercial burial plots and shophouse churches), when NGOs have difficulty getting state land for animal shelters, we are giving land to footballers.This is madness!

But I must confess that it is a tad unfair to heap all the blame on Faizal Azumu. The whole Ex-Co should bear responsibility because they have consented to it. The MB can only administer the State with the cooperation and agreement of the other Ex-Co members. PH is a coalition government comprising of DAP, PKR, Amanah and PPBM. DAP is the largest party in the Perak Government and PPBM is the smallest. I suggest DAP take the biggest blame. If it had wanted to it could have objected to this “robbery”; but it didn’t. It supported it.

This is early days and already the PH Government in Perak has shown its ineptitude. While I believe there are good people with a little intelligence and integrity in the coalition they are useless if they don’t speak up.  If you see someone being robbed and you do nothing, you are aiding and abetting the robber so to speak.

PH = UMNO-BN

The only thing that keeps this PH Government alive is that the nasty taste of the UMNO-BN Government is still fresh in the people’s mouth. But already, Perakians are finding that PH is no different from UMNO-BN.

What have Perakians done to deserve Faizul Azumu?

Give the small farmers back their land!

Give out 39 Datukships, it’s cheaper lah.