Abdullah should “walk the talk” of an open, transparent and trustworthy government by ending the eight-year secrecy of the API to protect the health and safety of 26 million Malaysians and herald the advent of an information society

Media Statement (2)
by Lim Kit Siang  

(Parliament, Wednesday): The Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi should “walk the talk” of an open, transparent and trustworthy government by ending the eight-year secrecy of the Air Pollution Index (API) to protect the health and safety of 26 million Malaysians and to herald the advent of an information society in Malaysia.

The statement by Deputy Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Najib Razak yesterday that Malaysians will have to be content with general information on the haze as the government has no plans to make the API public is most disappointing and unacceptable.

Malaysians must express loud and clear  their disappointment at Najib’s statement and demand that the Prime Minister  should give this matter new and deep redeliberation, not only because of the return of the haze and its health hazard to 26 million Malaysians, but because of the larger national implications, such as:

• A test of Abdullah’s  pledge to head an administration which is trustworthy and  people-oriented ever-ready to hear the truth from the various sectors of society; and
   

• whether Malaysia is ready to join the ranks of nations at  the cutting edge of the information and communications technology  revolution to become an information society, where information is not regarded as the property of the government but the right of the people.
   

DAP had been in the forefront opposing the government decision in 1997 to classify the  API  as an official secret especially during haze, which went against the ethos of greater openness and transparency in an information age.

It was most short-sighted decision for while Malaysians support  tourist promotion to bring in  tourist revenue, this cannot be at the expense of the health and welfare of the citizens or those of the tourists themselves.

In the  era of information technology, it is sheer folly for the government to pretend that it could  mislead foreign tourists into believing that there is pure and clean air in the country when haze is blanketing the Malaysian skies by refusing to release the daily API readings.

The  contention that the release of API figures would be distorted by the foreign media to paint a grim picture of Malaysia to have an adverse effect on the economy, particularly the flow of tourist ringgit, is both short-sighted and pre-information society.

By this logic, the Singapore authorities should be  equally, if not more, concerned about the adverse effect of poor API data on foreign tourist arrivals to the island republic – but Singapore never banned the API even in the worst haze catastrophe in the past eight years.

 
(10/08/2005)