Don't fear Singapore???

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Today our dear PM extolled to UMNO members in Pulai not to fear Singapore that intends to invest in the mega govt project at Iskandar Development Region.

So....it has come to this then. Our country that is rich in terms of natural resources has to kow tow to our well managed neighbor down south to plead and protect their interest so that they will come and invest in Johore.

Iskandar Development Region was the brainchild of the government and so far aside from sporadic investment news from Lego to build a Lego World Theme Park there not much else is known on the progress of the whole project. This leads me to believe that all this is just a desperate attempt to convince our southern neighbor to invest in a place that others are not interested in.

The reasons are many and top among the list is corruption and bureaucracies from the myriads of govt institutions even before any project can be approved,let alone started in IDR. Foreign investors have no time for such things when there are other cheaper,cost effective destinations where they can park their money like Thailand,Cambodia and Vietnam which offers pioneering status to companies that invests there in this period of it's growth.

So the PM has little choice but to plead with Singapore to put some of their dollars into IDR. The Malaysian government is at a distinct disadvantage at the moment and the ruling elite in Singapore knows this all too well. Already despite news to the contrary they won the upper hand in the KTM land deal,and won with well planned and meticulous legal work at ICJ where they won Pulau Batu Putih.

The PM doesn't realize that the people do not fear Singapore per say but they fear that in having the upper hand Singapore would use that position to their maximum advantage at the expense of Malaysians. IDR was ill conceived to begin with and it was mainly an excuse to hand out projects to cronies and connected individuals. Why would moving the administartion center from JB town centre to IDR which is far serves the people's interest?

The dollar amount invested so far as reported could not be verified. A planned documentary on the lack of progress there was stopped before airing from NTV7 recently. This is what we fear PM..not Singaporeans.

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