By the day, I am becoming indeed more dismayed, disappointed and disillusioned with our MPs who treat the august house(Parliament) as a playground for children to play marbles. They should tackle real issues and not fight shadows. Let me explain what are the real issues and what are the shadows.

Real issues:

1. The crime rate

The crime rate has risen in most areas in the country. Are our IGP, his police force and the home ministry tackling this real issue? People do not feel safe taking a walk on the streets, especially at night. Girls and women have to look over their shoulders lest some guy wants to use a parang to threaten life and limb.

House-owners may not have a peaceful slumber now that house break-ins are rather too common for comfort. Car-owners do not feel safe as their cars may be stolen or their windscreens smashed to smithereens.

So, what is the solution?

a. Have more police patrols around crime-prone areas. The police should know where crime is more rampant and make more rounds in these areas.

b. In housing estates, revive the Rukun Tetangga patrols. Get citizens involved in patrols since the police oftentimes say that their hands are full. Surely each citizen could help to patrol his own area or road. This will save money for the government too.

c. Ban the parang. This weapon has been used very often for robberies, thefts, rapes and murders. Any one carrying this weapon should be treated in the same manner as one who carries a gun; and the punishment should fit the weapon carried or used.

This ban will give a warning to any one who carries or uses the parang in that the law will have no mercy for him or her. Have the honourable MPs done anything to help the people who voted them in that is to make safety as one of their priorities?

2 Transportation

Workers need transport to go to work. The ordinary workers do not have the luxury of driving cars or even own motorcycles. So they depend heavily on public transport. They depend on buses, the LRTs, the monorails and KTM to take them from A to B, and from B to A. Is public transporter for the masses punctual and adequate?

Punctuality is one big issue. The workers need to reach their working place on time. In most cases, they have to clock in; and they have to clock out on time to reach home and take care of their kids and cook food. They simply cannot afford to be late for work and get a black mark
for late attendance. They cannot afford to be late back home and most of them need day-care centres or day-care maids to take care of their kids.

Are there enough buses, LRT coaches and KTM coaches so that the masses could be transported more frequently and efficiently ?

So, what is the solution?

Have more buses, more coaches for the trains and get enforcement officers to check on their punctuality of the vehicles. Give these enforcement jobs to those school-leavers and the university graduates who are unemployed.

What are the MPs doing about this problem of public transport? They should make their voices heard . And what is the transport ministry doing about it?

3. The environment

Tourists can get a ‘good’ impression of the country by first visiting our toilets! Check the toilets at KLIA, the toilets at the LCCT, toilets at Puduraya, toilets at the restaurants and coffee-shops and toilets at the hotels. Most of them stink like hell! Are they cleaned periodically?

Yes, they do collect 20 sen or 30 sen for each visit to the toilet. But are they making sure that the toilets do not smell?

And at the Puduraya bus terminal, the area is perpetually filled with fumes from the exhaust pipes from buses. Don't you thinking they are polluting the air and suffocating commuters? Every day you notice a mass of humanity breathing in polluted air which they carry with them to their villages or towns.

Look at the rivers - the Gombak River and the Klang River, for example. You see all sorts of rubbish being carried merrily to the sea. Is this a sight to behold and wonder? Why can't these rivers be cleaned up? We have heard of grandiose plans to clean them up for decades but there is no one lifting a finger to do something about their sight and smell.

I wrote to the transport minister some years back on water -transport as one way to ease traffic congestion. These water-ways should cover a wide area from Cheras in the south to Jalan Gasing in Petaling Jaya in the north to Gombak in the East and to Klang in the West.

Gondolas or rafts could be one vehicle of transportation, thereby making journeys in the city a pleasant adventure. It may become an added attraction for tourists.

4. The economy

Give ideas on how to tackle the economic woes. BN and the opposition should put their heads together and try to find solutions. BN, especially, should not pour cold water on any idea emanating from the other side. Similarly, the opposition should not condemn any idea that comes from the BN.

No one has a monopoly on idea. The whole world is facing a serious recession, worse than the one experienced in the 1930s. This is not the time to throw tantrums and call others all sorts of names.

MPs are honoured to do an honourable job. o not fight shadows. Do not be afraid of criticisms. Argue like true gentlemen and true ladies. Talk sense, not nonsense. And the speaker must act impartially; and not be carried away by emotion or partisanship.

Don't treat the voters as fools who cannot think. Don't forget that you must face them in the next general election. So do your job well and you will be remembered when the time comes. The others will be discarded.