The Malaysian Insider
March 10, 2014
Has Malaysia paid a high price with its Third World standards and attitude towards security and asset management issues, was the question posed by a veteran newsman when commenting on the missing Malaysia Airlines Beijing-bound flight MH370.
Former New Straits Times editor-in-chief Datuk A. Kadir Jasin said that while waiting for news on the missing MH370, it cannot be denied that the control and security checks at Malaysian airports, including the Kuala Lumpur International Airport can be said to be “relaxed” compared with those in Europe, North America, Australia and New Zealand.
He noted that even the mammoth Dubai airport had tighter control and security checks.
“Have we paid a high price for the attitude and third-world mentality towards security and asset management?
“Is this the repercussion for the corruption, abuse of power and negligence which have reportedly happened repeatedly in KLIA?” he asked in his latest blog posting, adding his voice to the growing criticism over poor airport security at the country’s main gateway.
The criticism comes as it was revealed that two men with stolen passports had boarded the MAS flight MH370, which has been missing since Saturday morning.
He also asked if the plane’s disappearance was the ultimate disaster as a result of corruption, abuse of power and flaws that are reported to be constantly happening at the Kuala Lumpur International Airport.
“Just look at the repeated delays in the opening of budget terminal klia2.
“Everyone is relaxed, everything appears to be alright and nobody is owning up or taking responsibility. Its business as usual,” he said in relation to klia2.
Kadir, writing in his blog said the missing jetliner remains a big question mark – given its sophistication, good safety record and being in the hands of an experienced pilot – to the point that it cannot be traced.
He said that a Malaysia Airlines flight, which crash landed in Gelang Patah in Johor in 1977, had also been hijacked. A hundred people made up of passengers and crew died in the tragedy. – March 10, 2014.
#1 by winstony on Tuesday, 11 March 2014 - 7:09 am
Aren’t we on our way to becoming a first world country within a few short years?
Yet now, we have a government with third world mentality?
So, all this while we have been fooled by 2020 which is an euphemism for “leakage” of our national wealth?
No wonder the till has to be replenished with GST and what not?
#2 by undertaker888 on Tuesday, 11 March 2014 - 7:30 am
Umno and its cohorts MCA and mic somehow manage to turn this country into an international pari@h. Rampant corruptions, A!!ah, BTN, missing engine, missing plane, project IC, etc. You named it, you got it.
#3 by Justice Ipsofacto on Tuesday, 11 March 2014 - 8:20 am
Meanwhile umno and perkasa are busy ensuring that “melayu tak akan hilang dari muka dunia.”
#4 by yhsiew on Tuesday, 11 March 2014 - 8:54 am
It is unfair to blame KLIA squarely for adopting the “third world mentality” as one has to consider the user-friendliness of Interpol’s database of stolen passports. Interpol’s database is currently available to law enforcement authorities but not to airlines. Assume the database is finally networked to airlines free of charge with hack-proof features. Assume an Internet search engine speed of 600,000 characters per second and assume there are 30 characters for each stolen passport record (name + passport no.). Since there are 40 million stolen passport records in the database, there will be (30 X 40,000,000) characters and it will take [(30 X 40,000,000)/600,000] or 2,000 seconds (i.e. 33.3 minutes) to search through the entire database to determine if any of its records matches the passport no. of the would-be passenger. A Boeing 777 normally could seat 300 passengers. Hence the extra time required by the airlines to process the 300 passports will be (33.3 minutes X 300) or 166.5 hours or 6.94 days (i.e. almost 1 week). Inevitably, the airlines will have to bear the manpower cost for an additional 166.6 hours.
#5 by Justice Ipsofacto on Tuesday, 11 March 2014 - 2:37 pm
///“Have we paid a high price for the attitude and third-world mentality towards security and asset management?///
So that makes us wot?
A kangkung man with first world pretensions – a wannabe?
#6 by waterfrontcoolie on Tuesday, 11 March 2014 - 3:34 pm
En Kadir, if competition is based on artificially “created environment”, there is no way you can expect people endowed in such position to think in a competitive manner. They expect every aspect of their position to be ‘inherited’ based on inherent rights. 1st World means competition based on Darwin’s theory of survival to the fittest and ablest; though in most instances even 20% of such workers based on competition would have made this nation competitive; after all we have “exported” some 2 millions Malaysians world-wide to serve the interests of other nations. Unless and until, this issue can be put into practice, we gonna see even more drastic resultants!
#7 by cemerlang on Tuesday, 11 March 2014 - 9:41 pm
if you are the leader and that is your policy…man made policies can be changed…it is up to you the citizens, the reps to know what you want for yourself and your country…if you can get yourself a better life elsewhere and that is what you want…it is sickening when people start to question your birthplace, your citizenship, your loyalty to your country…so what if you are not a malay but you can contribute much to malaysia…must it be the cina thing, the malay thing, the bumi thing ? what is the point if you are a bumiputra or a malay but you are doing so little and yet you dare to question those who are not of your race but can do much more ?
#8 by cseng on Tuesday, 11 March 2014 - 4:49 pm
Just watch the press conference, morning minister said Italian can not look like asean, by evening Italian look like Balotelli, now Italian look like an Iranian.
Not sure if the plane’s disappearance was the ultimate disaster as a result of corruption, abuse of power …..
But the disaster of daily press conf. is.
#9 by cemerlang on Tuesday, 11 March 2014 - 9:35 pm
you can’t judge a book by its’ cover…some people look so caucasian until you really talk to them or stand that close to them to realize they are not caucasian… and asians love to dye their hair…from afar you think they are caucasians…not terrorists but illegal immigrants with fake passports,stolen identity some more
#10 by raven77 on Wednesday, 12 March 2014 - 12:47 am
Our KLIA and immigration goons are very good at stopping ordinary Malaysians with ICs but useless when dealing with foreigners as most of them dont speak the Engleeesh……
Infact we have foreigners walking in and out of the country at whim thru every border point but not Malaysians…takde IC ….habis lah lu….just as well hand over the country to Idons, Banglas, Suluks, Iranians, Nigerians etc etc etc…..