“Some have a backbone. Some retreat in complicit, criminal, and despicable silence to keep their privileges and end up bowing to fascism. May we all have half the backbone Francesca Albanese shows. Maybe we have half her integrity. May we have half the strength.
“To all those still silent, to all the complicit ones, to all the enabling ones, accountability will find you one day, if your conscience does not find you first.”
- Paola Salwan Daher, activist and Collective Action director, in tribute to the UN rapporteur on the occupied Palestinian Territories, Albanese, who has been vocal on the atrocities in Gaza.
Today’s column is not about fascism or what is happening in the Middle East. It is about having a backbone, the courage to speak up when something is wrong, instead of looking after their bread and butter.
It is about their elegant silence on contentious issues.
It is about standing up as an individual or a representative, even if it incurs the wrath of political masters or friends.
It’s about demanding to know the details, including financial transactions.
It is about the elegant silence maintained by a few in positions of power who refuse to say anything or make a stand.
Particularly, it is about elected representatives forgetting or ignoring their pledges made in the run-up to the general election.
“We will look after your interests,” they shouted at ceramah. “People come first,” was another cry.
And for a good measure, “transparency and accountability” were words used – printed in their respective manifestos – and spoken whenever they were wooing votes directly from all of us.
It has been almost a week since Malaysiakini broke the story on the planned privatisation, or what I refer to as piratisation, of the fees collection for street parking in Petaling Jaya.
I was wrong in restricting it just to PJ and was corrected by Selangor state executive councillor for local government and tourism Ng Suee Lim, who said it will also apply to three other local councils - Subang Jaya City Council (MBSJ), Shah Alam City Council (MBSA), and Selayang Municipal Council (MPS).
Barely a whimper
However, except for Petaling Jaya MP Lee Chean Chung and Selayang MP William Leong, there has hardly been a whimper from the others.
There are three assemblypersons within each of these parliamentary constituencies, and 24 councillors in each local council. Isn’t it ironic that only two of the more than 100 representatives are speaking up?
The silence of the others - both elected and appointed representatives - can mean one of the three qualities referred to by Daher – integrity, complicity, or a lack of backbone.
Give us details
The question to ask: Have any of them sighted the contract between the concessionaire and the council? Was it tabled at a full council meeting? This is because the local councils cannot enter into any agreement without their tacit approval.
What are the terms and conditions? Have the lawyers vetted them? Is there a guarantee that the concessionaire can double the collection from 30 percent to 60 percent as claimed by Ng?
Will they be able to reduce double parking? How will they do it because they have no powers of enforcement? Is it providing a guarantee to make good the shortfall in collections?
The councils must be reminded of the alleged fiasco in Petaling Jaya before 2008, which was then governed by the Umno/BN coalition. It reportedly agreed with the friendly parties to take over street parking.
With a new state government and a new set of councillors taking over, they allegedly sought to terminate the agreements because they appeared lopsided and contained entrenched clauses that made it difficult.
Accountant Michael Soon, who was a one-term councillor in 2008, said that after tough negotiations, an amicable solution was found. But the issue did not die.
One of them allegedly did not remit the monies collected to the council, despite letters of demand from the council’s lawyers, which the party purportedly did not respond to. It is said that it owed the council a whopping RM7.2 million and was subsequently wound up, but MBPJ received nothing - not even a single cent - zero, zilch, kosong.
Why then is the state forcing these down the throats of councils? As I had previously written, if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.
Why haven’t they learnt from past experiences of getting other people’s fingers burnt?
The people need to be told the truth without it being couched or fudged with forecast figures, with the people ending up paying for their competence or lack of it.
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