In May last year, I said that the old saying “once is accident, twice is coincidence, thrice is enemy action” could appropriately be modified to “once is accident, twice is coincidence, thrice is systemic government collapse” in reference to the spate of government mishaps under the Abdullah premiership.

I was referring to the spate of embarrassing defects in new government offices in a matter of weeks, viz:

• the landslide in Putrajaya (Precinct 9) only inches away from three 15-storey government apartments, damaging 25 cars and evacuating more than 1,500 people from Blocks A, B and C in Phase 11 of the government housing complex on March 22, 2007;

• the closure of the Immigration Department headquarters in Putrajaya after water flooded the seven-floor building following a failure in plumbing, turning away and evacuating more than 1,000 people on April 11, 2007;

• the collapse of a ceiling due to a leaky sprinkler system at the Entrepreneur and Co-operative Development Ministry in Putrajaya on April 28, 2007; and

• the ceiling collapse in a secretary’s room at the world’s largest court complex at the new Jalan Duta court complex in Kuala Lumpur on April 30, 2007.

This tag “once is accident, twice is coincidence, thrice is systemic government collapse” can again be invoked over the latest government scandal – the third closure with the reappearance of cracks on the Middle Ring Road (MRR) 2 in Kepong, less than two years after an atrociously exorbitant RM70 million repair of the RM238 million project. Read the rest of this entry »