As Parliamentary Opposition Leader, I apologise to the people of Johore Baru that Parliament had failed them abysmally in the past week to articulate their deepest fears and anxieties about their personal safety and those of their loved ones and the loss of their most fundamental citizenship right to be able to feel safe whether at home or out in the streets.
In my 33 years as Member of Parliament, I had never felt more ashamed as a MP when my urgent motion to get Parliament to debate the rampant crime and lawlessness in Johor Baru was rejected, for I felt that I had terribly let down the people of Johor Baru and Malaysia as Parliament has again proved to be utterly irrelevant and even indifferent to the most burning concerns of the people.
I had tried not once but twice in the first week of Parliament which ended yesterday to bring the crisis of public confidence in police failure to control and reduce crime to the floor of Parliament for emergency debate by way of two urgent motions, but both were rejected.
When the Speaker, Tan Sri Ramli Ngah, rejected my urgent motion yesterday, I felt a great sense of personal failure.
I also could not believe or understand why Barisan Nasonal MPs, particularly those from Johor Baru and Johore, could be so indifferent to the recent spate of brutal crimes such as robbery-cum-gang rapes that they do not want Parliament to be in the forefront to demand an immediate and concrete action plan to restore law and order to Johor Baru and wipe out its notoriety as the nation’s capital of crime.
These MPs from JB and Johore have not uttered a single word in Parliament for the whole of past week on the rampant crime and lawlessness which had become a daylight nightmare of everyone in Johor Baru and Johore? Can they explain why?
My sadness and sense of failure as an MP when my motion was rejected yesterday was compounded by two other factors:
- the media reports yesterday of another two brutal crimes in Johor Baru the day before, involving gang rapes of a Malay and Chinese girl, bearing out the truth of a media headline “Any race could be a victim”, that this is not a race or political problem but one of fundamental human and citizenship right; and
- the disappointing result of the Wednesday Cabinet meeting which did not declare anything new apart from talk of a crackdown on crime in JB, as the announcement of 400 more cops in the streets in JB and new temporary police stations had already been announced two days earlier in JB by the Health Minister, Datuk Chua Soi Lek.
What the people of JB and Malaysia want are no more verbal assurances from the Cabinet that actions would be taken but immediate and concrete action where they and their loved ones could immediately feel safe in the streets, public places and the privacy of their homes — today and tomorrow and not in the future, whether three or six months’ time!
The people of JB and Malaysia are tired of too many assurances of “actions to be taken” in the past, whether by the Prime Minister or the Inspector-General of Police to fight crime but which had proved to be mere empty words.
For a start, what JB needs is an immediate deployment of at least 1,000 more cops and not just 400.
Johor Baru Selatan with a population of 1,159,079 and 1,159 cops has a policemen:population ratio of 1:1,000. Johor Baru Utara with a population of 530,990 and 684 cops has a policemen:population ratio of 1:776.
With an increase of 400 more cops to the total Johor Baru police contingent of 1,843, the policemen-population ratio for Johor Baru (total population: 1,690,069) will be improved to 1:753.
This is not only too late, but too little. What is urgently needed is an immediate deployment of 1,000 more cops to Johor Baru to bring the policemen-population ratio to 1:595, which is still double the national policemen:population ratio of 1:275.
If the Cabinet is not prepared to make such a decision to approve an allocation for 1,000 more cops for JB, then let all MPs, regardless of party and region, stand as one to approve such an allocation, and apply the same principle to all the other hot-spots of crime in the country, such as Klang Valley and Penang, so that Malaysians, tourists and investors enjoy the double freedoms of being free from crime and the fear of crime.