Mohd Ariff Sabri Aziz | January 19, 2012 The Malaysian Insider
Gemas, now infamous for the National Feedlot Centre and the double tracking railway project scandals, is poised to be the epicentre of another political tsunami.
COMMENT
Usually those who are pressing for an early election are those from within Umno itself and who think they will contest as candidates replacing the incumbents.
In Umno replacing incumbents is not difficult – just mobilize a few dissenting and envious voices to create the necessary ‘public’ opinion.
Elevate personal anecdotes and personal sob and frustrated stories and exploit those as generalizations.
Then package all the lies and present it to a nervous and insecure Umno division head.
Never mind if he was the Deputy Prime Minister then and now Prime Minister.
I was in Gemas for the Rapat Rakyat programme on Jan 15. Anwar Ibrahim was there.
I would estimate the crowd to have been around 10,000 people. The local guy standing next to me in the crowd confided that he had never seen such a big crowd before attending a political gathering. And he’s been staying in Gemas since the 60s.
Umno will of course trivialize this observation by saying the opposition has always attracted large crowds to their rallies. But in the end, the Barisan Nasional will win.
10,000 crowd to hear Anwar
I hope for their sake, that simplistic response is true.
This time I think, the usual knee jerk response is just for self-assurance over the anxieties engulfing the BN camp.
The first three speakers spoke about local politics not about the big issues concerning and relating to Anwar, who was the last speaker.
The three who spoke first found unison in the voice from the crowd who were clearly primed up to eject (Menteri Besar) Mohamad Hassan and his team from Negeri Sembilan.
Gemas is special or should I say infamous for two things actually – the National Feedlot Centre and the double tracking rail to Johor.
The NFC cattle farm is located in Gemas. (Federal Minister) Shahrizat Abdul Jalil whose family members are currently embroiled in the RM250 million financial scandal surrounding the NFC cattle project chose Gemas as the site for the project.
Gemas has since gained the moniker of the cattle capital of Malaysia.
The NFC is clearly a blatant case of corruption involving many more people within Umno than the figures now under public scrutiny.
Watch Gemas
Gemas is also the starting point for the double tracking rail project from Gemas to Johor Baru.
That project is also shrouded in controversy. The original project was given to China Railway Engineering and Construction (CREC) on account of the company being a GLC of the Chinese government and also on account of its specialization in the construction of rail projects.
The Malaysian had cabinet approved it. Curiously later, this decision was rescinded and the project was instead given to China Harbours.
Now it seems, another private Chinese company has been given the project.
In between companies, rumors abounded about large amounts of money changing hands.
So Gemas appears to be at the epicenter of financial scandals.
As such it is fitting for Gemas to herald the wave of change that will soon snuff out the life of the corrupt and the mediocre in Negeri Sembilan.
Here’s more: Syed Mokhtar Bukhary is taking over Keretapi Tanah Melayu Berhad (KTMB).
The double tracking project is for use by KTMB. What’s stopping KTMB from telling the government, it can do the Gemas-JB double tracking job?
Gamuda made lots of money for the northern portion of the double tracking job so why can’t KTMB under Syed Mokhtar do the same?
The writer is a former Umno state assemblyman and a FMT columnist. This is an excerpt from his blog sakmongkolak47