Thesun 2009-07-23 Page13 The Truth Of The Matter

theSun

13

| THURSDAY JULY 23 2009

INTERVIEWS VIEWS

why we put in a full week. Would you say that the billboard issue was the biggest success? It’s more than that because to reform local governments, or any government, there are a few aspects. One is you can change the system or change the people. I find that changing the system is easier than changing the people. The quality of people is hard to nurture. But to change the system, you can have the knowledge or you can use someone else’s experiences and all that to do it. So to reform the local government, we have to come up with the correct, updated guidelines, and new by-laws. We’ve been talking to operators of restaurants, coffee-shops, cybercafés, all kinds of people, even bird’s nest traders to come up with new guidelines. This is one way. The other way, of course, is through the (state) exco’s decision to make changes, to give direction. Meantime, we search for the right people. We dropped a few officers, no presidents, just directors; we quietly dropped some where there was evidence of corruption and abuse of power but by and large they’re all there. That was our strategy – we want a stabilised government before reform because we want to push hard for reformation. There might be too much back-lag that we do not know of but after one year, we’re more stable. But we need to do more. We want to do more. It’s not business as usual. We’ve even changed how we do things: licences are approved immediately. If we find you do

not follow the laws (we revoke it). And every application has a checklist to make sure you fulfil the requirements. Can you correct this perception that in your statements you side with business as opposed to public interest? I seldom make statements. I don’t know how this impression (came about). Rehda (Real Estate and Housing Developers Association) gives us the most number of complaints. Because of hillslope development, quotas, bullies that they claim are in the government. This has forced us to set up Pemudah Selangor because we want to solve the problems. Many policies and guidelines have made it difficult for businessmen. There is also a perception problem. When there’s a quarrel between the government and the people, the government is wrong. If there’s a quarrel between the consumers and the shops, the shops are wrong. That is the perception but in reality we’re putting the people’s interest first while protecting the interest of the businesses without jeopardising the interest of the government. It’s not easy but we have to do it because if you don’t do it, the businessmen will avoid your state. So we have to strike a balance. We’re not rigid. We strive to protect everybody’s interest. Even the orang asli, we’re trying to give them land. And to protect the consumers’ interests, we forced ourselves to buy up the water company, despite it being very expensive. And we’ve launched welfare

programmes. We are aware that it is not enough and that’s why from this year, we will continue with welfare programmes while spending more time to clean up the Klang River, initiate urban renewal (programmes), improve the public transport system. What is the successful implementation rate? I think around 30%. We’ve also started saving money. We’ve saved RM400 million in one year. The government managed to save only RM400 million in 50 years. It took us 30 years to get to this stage in Selangor, so it’s not far off the mark to say it will take another 30 years to clean up or to reform? I don’t think it’ll take 30 years to clean up but to reform, yes. To clean up, five to 10 years should be sufficient. We’ve cleaned up a lot. Before we came in, the price of everything purchased was two to three times more expensive. But after we came in, it is 30%-50% higher than the market price. I’m talking about the procurement system. And the contracts we give out, we re-zoned to make the zones smaller, and the prices become smaller. Projects that are RM30,000 are given out as RM30,000 but before us, the RM30,000 project were given out as RM60,000. That’s why the sub-sub-sub (contractors) can survive. But under this government, whoever wants to be a contractor cannot sub. If you’re not an owner operator, you’re out. You cannot survive because we have calculated how much

you can make. It took us months to study and re-zone the areas but we haven’t implemented it yet.

Sometimes you fight, you want your man to get it … You have to fight all the time

You also have a lot of crosspolitical issues right? Because the PR government is still trying to find its footing? You know more than me … These things need very strong characters to push through. So sometimes you fight, you want your man to get it … You have to fight all the time but all the time you try to sit together, after the fight. Just like the ruling on alcohol. Unnecessary! But it’s on your table, you have to stop it in an effective manner. You cannot go head on so you go the other way round. But you have to appease the PAS supporters. Correct, this is why sometimes we cannot go head-on. That’s why they always say Ronnie, you are my friend but you are also the biggest fellow who says no to our thing. I say ‘yes, thank you very much. That should be the way.’ Because they still see me as a friend because our ties have been established for a long time but we are always the same ones who tell them ‘you cannot do this or that.’ I think our generation won’t have that much of a problem. I am worried about the future generation when the leaders don’t have a bond. Now that you hold the local government portfolio, some of your supporters feel it’s payback time. How do you deal with them? Very simple.

Sometimes people ask ‘Why is Ronnie having breakfast with this fellow? This fellow paid for Ronnie’s victory dinner in Klang. You know who this fellow is?’ Yes, I know, they have started to talk. Now that you know who these people are, how do you deal with them? It’s very simple. The talk that these are the fellows who financed the dinner is yes and no. He is only one of the sponsors. He didn’t foot the whole bill. We didn’t ask him to do it. It was voluntary. So when it is done that way, you cannot ask for anything in return. You cannot! Because I’ve never asked for it. Number two, people outside know these people on the surface. Not me. We know these people for a long time. We know their friends and businesses. People who sit down with us for dinners and all, we know them unless they bring company whom we don’t know. You cannot see me sitting with some people and assume that I know all these people. It’s not like that. People may bring somebody else so my advice is don’t jump to conclusions. Always find out. And then the people who are close to us have strengths and weaknesses, for example there’s one guy who’s seen as a Zakaria man. But people may not know why he’s so close to Zakaria, I know. These kinds of people supported us long before that, even before he was Zakaria’s man.

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