Barisan Nasional Ministers and MPs had never found it more difficult than today to keep awake to go through a major government policy speech in Parliament – the tabling of the Ninth Malaysia Plan Mid-Term Review by the Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi.
Even BN MPs who wanted to thump the table to create an atmosphere of support for the Prime Minister found little cause to do so, except for two or three occasions when Sabah and Sarawak were mentioned.
The only time the Barisan Nasional Ministers and MPs perked up were at the end of Abdullah’s speech, when he deviated from the prepared text distributed by the Treasury to make a political attack on those who wanted to “grab power” despite the general election result of March 8, 2008.
If the Ninth Malaysia Plan Mid-Term Review Report is intended to give new hope and inspiration to Malaysians that the Abdullah administration has heard the message of the March 8 political tsunami, and is prepared to strike out in new directions to enable the country to face the challenges of globalization, the result is a negative one.
Neither Abdullah nor the Ninth Malaysia Plan Mid-Term Review was frank – making no reference of the shelving of the RM2 billion Penang Monorail and RM1.5 billion Penang Outer Ring Road projects, although they were reported by the media yesterday and confirmed by Economic Planning Unit (EPU) officials.
Is this because Abdullah finds it difficult to rebut charges that such cancellations do not have vengeful and vindictive motives – especially when Abdullah could recently announce billion-ringgit angpows to Sabah and Sarawak to placate Sabah and Sarawak feelings of alienation and marginalisation?