Who is to blame?

A witchhunt is about persecuting perceived enemies, particularly when it is done with little regard to actual guilt or innocence.

When newly-minted Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi announced a royal commission on our much-maligned police force, some took great pains to stress that it should not be a witchhunt. Indeed, it shouldn't. Otherwise, the innocent will be burnt at the stake.

However, if the royal commission is to have any shred of credibility, those who have broken the law, abused their powers and trampled on human rights should be taken to court. They must be held accountable for their crimes.

Abdullah, who is fast approaching his first 100 days in office, has clearly taken tentative steps in introduce reform in our institutions.

The first couple of years of a new administration are usually the most liberal. Expect the rot to creep in soon after. Given this, Malaysians do not have much time to see that Abdullah makes good his vows and goes the full distance.

Still, critics of the previous Dr Mahathir Mohamad regime should take some credit for the changes.

If not for their tenacity and perseverance, it would have been business as usual. After all, who has been complaining about police brutality and the abuse of human rights? Surely not the cabinet ministers and the government-controlled media.

Now that his former boss is gone, the new premier is signaling his intention to move away from Mahathir's fetish for everything big.

Abdullah should be commended for halting the railway double-tracking project, which at RM14.5 billion would have been the country's most costly infrastructure project. Unfortunately, he has not gone far enough - there are many other 'non-priority' projects which he should have scuttled.

The RM4.5 billion Bakun dam is one. Even without this mega-dam, Sarawak has 17 percent of excess energy. The construction of Bakun is turning economics on its head - a case of generating electricity now, and figuring out what to do with it later.

Channeling the electricity to the peninsula - by throwing in another RM2 billion for undersea cables - will not solve the problem either. The country already has the capacity to produce 40 percent more electricity than it consumes.

And if the RM7.6 billion aluminum smelter mooted by Mahathir's favourite tycoon Syed Mokhtar Al-Bukhary - which will take up half of Bakun's output - is shelved, as it is likely to be, then Sarawakians will end up with the distinction of having the world's biggest swimming pool.

Who is going to explain to the 10,000 indigenous people who have seen their homes flooded? Not to mention, the ecological disaster from the clear-felling of a pristine rainforest the size of Singapore.

Indeed, some RM1.5 billion has already been poured into this unnecessary dam. Instead of spending more to complete the project, it is time to cut our losses, especially when there is no likelihood in recovering the cost.

Mahathir's obsession for a national car maker - much like his misguided national steelmaker Perwaja - has resulted in Malaysians subsidising Proton through the high prices we have paid and will continue to pay for many years to come.

Mahathir was fond of telling his detractors that we could afford such projects, so why complain? No doubt, most of these projects were funded through state-owned oil company Petronas.

With annual profits of RM20 billion, Petronas can afford to splurge. So far, it has picked up the bills for Putrajaya, the Twin Towers, Formula One Circuit, Proton City and the multi-billion ringgit bailouts of certain crony companies.

But someone must account for the estimated RM250 billion which Petronas has spent over the past two decades. Our oil resources are not going to last forever either.

Not only is Petronas wasting money which rightfully belongs to all of us, but it is squandering the resources of future generations of Malaysians. The billions of ringgit which Petronas has pumped into Mahathir's grandiose dream could have been better spent in other priority areas - education, health, housing, and the poor.

While we are left to ponder on the mega-projects which we inherited from Mahathir, it is still not too late for Abdullah to put an end to some of them.

He should abort two of Mahathir's other key pet projects - the RM1.5 billion incinerator in Broga and the absurd RM1.1 billion 'crooked half-bridge' on the Causeway.

But who is to blame for Mahathir's profligacy? The answer is obvious - the former prime minister himself, who is now an adviser to, yes, Petronas.

However, his spineless cabinet members, who are still running the country today, should share part of the blame. They, and our sycophantic media, who together sang praises of Mahathir's 'grand vision' not too long ago.

No, Malaysians do not want a witchhunt. What we want is for those guilty of abusing their power - and those who have been negligent in their duty to protect the national interest - to account for their actions.

Let's begin with the police force.