I said that I am prepared to publicly apologise and withdraw all my statements on the new Miri Port about its being the worst case of “development folly” and the “biggest white elephant” in the country if I am proved wrong in the visit.
On the other hand, George Chan and Edwin Dundang must apologise if I am proved right, and tell the people of Sarawak and Malaysia the entire story about the “biggest white elephant” in the country, its total costs, what feasibility studies were made before the new Miri port was built, who were the consultants and what were their liabilities for building a port which could not be used and whether the Sarawak state government would sue the consultants for negligence, who were the contractors in the construction of the new Miri port project, and everything that the public are entitled to know about it.
As George Chan had rebutted my description of the new Miri port in Kuala Baram as a “white elephant” and a waste of public funds as the port does not serve its purpose, and Edwin had accused me of making “misleading, inaccurate and malicious” statements about the port which are “baseless lies and unsustained exaggerations”, this would be a golden opportunity for them to publicly prove me wrong.
However, I have not received any response from either of them in the past 48 hours.
I am now inviting both George Chan and Edwin Dundang to join me in a visit to the new Miri port in Kuala Baram next Thursday, 19th April 2001, and in the era of Information Technology of instant communications, I hope they can give a response within 24 hours.
During our joint visit, I have no objections if Edwin Dundang wants to serve me me his “white elephant” law suit prepared by his “white elephant” lawyers, since he had announced his intention to sue me.
It is a national shame that the new Miri port has become such a national
embarrassment that all the national and state ministers whether the
Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Dr. Mahathir Mohamad, Deputy Prime Minister,
Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, Transport Minister, Datuk Seri Dr. Ling
Liong
Sik, Sarawak Chief Minister, Tan Sri Taib Mahmud and even the Sarawak
Deputy Chief Minister Tan Sri Dr. George Chan himself are avoiding it like
the plague and are mortally afraid to be photographed by the media anywhere
around the latest and yet most useless port in the country.
I had said last week that any visitor to the RM350 million
Miri Port in
Kuala Baram will find the gates closed, grasses growing
on the roads, storage yards empty and the wharves abandoned.
George Chan and Edwin Dundang can order the gates of the new Miri port to be opened, the grasses to be cut and even mobilise staff and workers to go to the port to give it a bustle of activity for next Thursday’s visit, but how can they fill up the empty storage yards and abandoned wharves or get vessels to use the port?
Eight photographs of the Miri Port at Kuala Baram taken on Tuesday
morning (10th April 2001) at about 11 a.m., which show the abandoned
and dilapidated state of the RM350 million Miri port, less than three years
after its completion and full operation in July 1998, are up on the
Internet at the DAP homepage
http://www.malaysia.net/dap/enet.htm
or at my homepage:
http://www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/3939
The Auditor-General should come along for next Thursday’s visit to the new Miri port in Kuala Baram as he should explain why his office had never once in the past seven years of audit of the Sarawak state government accounts cautioned against the building of the “biggest white elephant” in the country.
If George Chan and Edwin Dundang accept my invitation to have a joint visit to the new Miri port in Kuala Baram next Thursday, the people of Miri can also turn up in large numbers to have a special outing to visit and see for themselves why the latest and newest port in the country has become the laughing-stock of the international port and transport industry.
(14/4/2001)