When things go wrong in Malaysia, we have a dilemma…
Is it because we don’t have what it takes to get it right?
Or is it because, maybe, if we don’t get it right, somewhere there is a benefit?
For example, if a mobile carrier drops your line mid-call, is that because they have not set it up right so that your call is uninterrupted? Or is it, maybe, better left like that because you can then be billed for two calls instead of the one?
Am I being unfair, or is there actually a payoff for that?
When a road is built, is it possible for the various authorities to coordinate their activities so that they do not dig it up again to lay infrastructure that should have been planned together with the making of the road? Is there a payoff for not getting it right?
Malaysia is famous for building things and letting them go to rot. We cannot seem to be able to maintain public facilities in the long term. Is it actually cheaper to rebuild and replace rather than to maintain? Or is maintenance too much trouble for the bureaucrats and rebuilding the easier option? Where does the payoff lie?
And, again, when a building or structure or facility just completed collapses, where was the compromise – in the design, the materials or negligence or incompetence in the building of it? And what engendered such a result?
When politicians make decisions which seem so inappropriate, is that because they lack the knowledge and education to see it the way we do? Or are they playing to the gallery? Or do they know something we don’t?
As we encounter, on every side, daily examples of systems and procedures and things in general that do not work according to plan or expectation, or according to their avowed purpose, what are we to think?
That we are a people who just can’t get it right?
Or is there a payoff?
So, here is the Malaysian dilemma, and the question we find ourselves asking:
Is it incompetence, or is it dishonesty?
One is not sure which answer one would prefer.
Or are we so far down the tube that it is, more often than not, both?
What do you think?
KH
