Sustainable Development and Worldviews

Someone named Publicola wrote to the great Augustine, Bishop of Hippo, asking: If a Christian is starving and on the point of death, and they see food in an idol’s temple, may they eat it? Augustine replied: ‘It is better to reject it with Christian fortitude’. This same Augustine who wrote the magisterial City of God was also the one who penned: ‘That all superstition of pagans and heathens should be annihilated is what God wants, God commands, God proclaims!’ As we compare Augustine to some of today's well-known leaders of religions, we can notice the same worldview that leads to extremism. We humans have natural tendency to create imaginary divine laws. How often we hear religious teachers say, "This is God's laws, we must follow out of gratitude"? Perhaps the rule of thumb to discern what is divine or not is whether the rule celebrates tangible signs of human flourishing such as life, joy, friendship, self-responsibility and social bond. Dying...

There are some misconceptions that the PTMP is the same as other mega projects that should be reviewed, if not cancelled. Some have even lobbied all the way to the Prime Minister Office and the Council of Eminent Persons against PTMP. These misconceptions are based on the wrong understanding about PTMP. It is therefore important for the public to know the uniqueness of PTMP in order to discern properly. What sets the PTMP apart from other mega projects is the use of an open tender process known as Request For Proposal (RFP). The RFP is a type of open tender that allows for competitive evaluation among different innovative proposals before a decision is made. The RFP differentiates PTMP from other projects, such as the RM81 billion East Coast Rail Link (ECRL), that do not use open tender .  Regular open tender and RFP There are several types of open tender. Each type is employed according to the scale and limitation of the project. I will only elaborate on the t...

The Penang state government has adopted an elevated Light Rail Transit (LRT) system instead of an on-ground tram system for the Penang Transport Master Plan (PTMP). One of the reasons the state government abandoned the previously proposed on-ground tram system is that it poses a danger to other road users, pedestrians and infrastructure. Statistics from the Australian Transport Safety Victoria record a rise in incidents of tram collisions involving people, infrastructure and road vehicles of 85%, 175% and 17% respectively over the past five years from 2013 to 2017. In that period, 192 people were hurt, 40 structures were damaged and 4,445 vehicles crashed. Accidents happen due to various causes. But banning all privately owned cars from the roads is utterly impractical. No credible government in the world has attempted that. While governments should constantly improve road safety for private car users, they should also build a public transport infrastructure which has the lea...

The Penang Transport Master Plan (PTMP) has an elaborate genesis. There are distorted versions being spread around by certain groups to call for endless review for the project.  This has delayed PTMP's implementation unnecessarily while daily Penangites continue to suffer traffic jam and Penang continues to be deprived of a much needed infrastructural development. It is therefore important to learn about PTMP's beginning, to avoid being deceived.   PTMP has its root in the state government’s 2009 initiative to establish the Penang Transport Council, which included 10 NGOs as members. This then led to the state government's opening a Request-For-Proposal (RFP) tender to invite interested organisation to bid for the role to prepare a study. The open tender received six submissions. An international team comprised of Malaysia’s AJC Planning, UK’s Halcrow and Singapore’s Cruise Centre was selected. The cost of the study was RM3.2 million. The cost was split be...

Malaysians are eager to know what has Pakatan Harapan (PH) government has accomplished since May 9, while the opposition has gone on its propaganda spree, telling the world that the government has not improved the country’s economy. Latest being MCA’s Wee Ka Siong who condescendingly urged the finance minister Lim Guan Eng to work his magic. In general, Malaysians are patient and understand that the new government needs time to improve the economy. No economist or politician can fix the RM1 trillion indebted economy overnight or over a year or two. The past six months, however, have shown signs of significant improvement. For one, our inflation rate has been reduced by 84%. The average inflation rate from June to October 2017 was 3.6%, which is very high compared to the same period this year, at 0.56%. Figure 1: Comparison of average inflation rate in the period of June to October 2017 and June to October 2018. Average inflation rate under BN government (June-Octob...