Melaka Oh Melaka...Ali Gostan how much your trip cost?

Holidaying in Latin America and France? For work or for pleasure? I think it is the latter. This is indeed preposterous. Unbelievable and irresponsible that the Melaka Chief Minister Datuk Seri Mohd Ali Rustam can describe his two-week visit to Argentina, Chile, Cuba, Venezuela and France as successful in meeting the objectives in biotechnology, information and communication technology, tourism, education and agriculture. As stated by Guan Eng in his press statement recently, Ali Gostan should not delude himself and others by declaring his million ringgit holiday in Latin America and France a success when the same objectives can be achieved so much more cheaply by visiting Singapore, our neighbour

I don’t see the necessity for a 28-member delegation to go all the way to these countries spending million of Ringgit unnecessarily without accountability and responsibility to the rakyat. Beside this trip earlier there were another trip organized by the State government going to China to see preparations for the Olympic Games in Beijing. I simply don’t understand the nature of the visit. Is Malacca hosting the Olympic? Or is Kuala Lumpur hosting one? Regardless of Malacca or KL, the answer stares at our face with a big NO. This is simply wasting of public funds. So with this very recent trip for communication and biotechnology, I wonder what Ali Gostan and his 28 vacation mates literally do or actually learnt in two weeks. No wonder our biotechnology centre set up a couple of years ago in MITC, Air Keroh remains a white elephant? Maybe members of the public should just drop in there to have a look and see what research our locals really do. I wonder even if they are scientist or just PLAYING to be scientist and waste public funds.

Is there any necessity to go all the way to Argentina to witness a memorandum of understanding to get teachers from Argentina? There are indeed sufficient Spanish teachers in Singapore and here too and that is if Ali is serious about learning the language. What about advertising them in the internet or through the embassies? That definitely saves a lot of money.

Instead of going to far-way places to learn from models of bio-technology and becoming a developed state, Singapore would be a better model. Singapore’s reputation as a developed state is unsurpassed in the world and its bio-technological part has attracted prominent scientists and Nobel laureates throughout the world. In fact our local scientist can be found anywhere in the world. Why don’t just bring them down to Malaysia and work for the state government. Why can’t the state or federal government allocate millions of Ringgit for the purposes of employing local scientists who are abroad? Entice them to come back. Our government should spend money on them and at the same time an allocation of funds for research and development that will be good for the state and nation and not spending unnecessary public funds such as a holiday.

If the trip is so successful, Ali should reveal the full itinerary, the places visited and the foreign VIPs met. Ali as head of the executive in the state of Melaka should be more transparent and open so as to tell all that is the truth. Don’t treat Malaccan as stupid and foolish for we are not gullible and easily been fooled by the powers that be.