If petrol price is expensive, use motorbike

Image taken from http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/3/33/Honda_C70.JPG

While I was back in my hometown, noticed that my father's trusty old bike is below the required safety standards. In fact, his Honda C70 kapchai's suspension has gave way. Without telling him, I secretly went about town to find a motorcycle repair shop.

The truth is, it was a hard find. Many years ago, there would be quite a few motorbicyle shop littering this tranquil town of Muar. Not any more. Many people have moved on to cars and the impact is felt down the chain of business. Many motorcycle shops would have a hard time to stay afloat and this was the time when there was a sudden increase of fires affecting motorcycle shops. Rumour mills point to a conspiracy to extract insurance payment and to exit the business.

Anyway, the newly found mechanic and wife was very helpful and chatty. He then stressed that business has been improving as more people are buying motorbikes as it uses less fuels and hence will lower down the cost of living. I enjoyed a ground perspective of our economy at work.

How ironic it is that I saw this yet to be ascertained authentic piece of invoice but seemingly scanned document; that charges the country RM1.58 million for driving motorbikes to an election. That is RM1,580,000 for 12 days of 'work' of driving around in their motorbikes for UMNO youth members. This is daylight robbery. I can work many many years and will never earn this type of money. And 200 people just took less that half a month to squeeze RM1.58 million from taxpayer's money. Only in UMNO world where it is more expensive to drive a motorbike.

So, in the days of increasing cost of living .. it is ironic that the mere lowly mechanic went about doing his work to earn a decent living. The change of mobility preference helped his family to earn a bit more during these times, but I reckon he earned just enough during the lean times. Yet, he was still able to give me discount on top of his service. He did not overcharge or undercharge. That is a lesson in integrity.

Integrity and Corruption

I am surprised this morning to get a cheeky call from my ex colleague to check my inbox. It was a link to a Singaporean news-site regarding a FORMER lecturer who cheated Singapore Polytechnic by submitting by false claims was jailed for four weeks and fined a total of $10,000 on Thursday. Then i realised that I know this chap. He used to come over at least 3-4 times a year to teach hard disk drive related technologies.

Not an ardent fan of Singapore but they are indeed strict. A police report was made and this person was made to pay many times over his meager false claim. Wonder if any of our politicians and leaders who made billions and millions will ever be subjected to such strict punishments?

Here is one current example.

“I don’t know what he was saying. I believe it’s not true,” said Tengku Adnan, who was a Deputy Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department assisting the minister in charge of law in 2001 when the clip was filmed.

“When I saw the (clip on) YouTube, I thought he (Lingam) was mad or drunk. I don’t know what he said. I believe it’s not true,” he said.

Whateverlah.

He is the same minister that 'abatted' the misuse ( corruption) of RM850,000 to 2 of his senior officers. Instead of reporting them to the police or Anti Corruption Agency, he decided to do a hush hush internal probe as cover up. And when one of the men got promoted, am sure that the other people have enough of this and leaked it out to the press and relevant departments.

I have noted before that there is too much money going to this ministry and many suspicions on where the money going to. A billion ringgit a year means that the ministry have to spend close to RM80 million per month or RM4 million per day. And this is just for activities to promote Malaysia.

Whateverlah