For nine years, Ipoh was solidly held by MCA, which they won on a promissory note of better things to come. What came was nothing of the sort that was promised.

First, in the early 1980s, the biggest despair brought by the Barisan Nasional-led government to Ipoh was when they tried to corner the tin market and failed miserably. As a result, the economical life-blood of Ipoh was destroyed forever when the tin price took a nose dive. It never recovered. The tin industry was destroyed.

Most of the retrenched tin mine workers were jobless and the only thing left for them to do was to hawk just to feed their family. Instead of giving licences to these unfortunate souls to ameliorate their sufferings, they were ignored, leaving them with no alternative but to hawk without licence.

The desperate need to survive by these unfortunate souls were met with uncompromising harsh enforcement from the Majlis Bandaraya Ipoh's (MBI) officers who did not show any empathy for the suffering they had to endure. They had their tricycle stalls compounded and on top of this, they were slapped with heavy fines. Many left the country to seek their livelihood elsewhere.

Now, at present, there are about 30 percent of the commercial shophouses in Ipoh which have fallen vacant as a result of poor economic planning by the government. Instead of solving this problem, the Barisan Nasional's appointed MBI came out with an idiotic idea to redevelop Waller Court into a commercial area without first addressing the issue of shop lots redundancy and housing for the 2,000 poor Waller Flats tenants. The plan to demolish Waller Court (519 units of flats) was made not for the interest of the existing tenants but for a few. To the BN, it meant contracts, but the poor tenants it meant misery.

The tenants of Waller Court together with DAP, formed the 'Save Waller Court' committee with DAP deputy secretary-general, M Kulasegaran, as its legal advisor, to protest the move. MCA immediately side-tracked and claimed that the plan to develop Waller Court was just a proposal which had not been given approval by the state government.

Another example was Yau Tat Sin Market, which was there until DAP lost total control of Kinta Valley in the 1995 general elections. Yau Tat Sin Market was built as a market primarily to cater for the lower-income group. But it was demolished on the pretext that it was unsafe.

Before the 1995 elections, the DAP got together a few engineers and lawyers who voluntarily gave their services to challenge MBI's claims that Yau Tat Sin Market was unsafe. As a result of this, the plan was shelved until the DAP was totally wiped out in the Kinta Valley in the 1995 general elections.

Another example of abuse of public interest was the 4,156 metres land which Taman Rishah's developer had given to the state government to be designated as a 'Green Belt'. But subsequently this piece of land was alienated by the Land Office at a premium of RM272,433 to a well-connected person to build a petrol kiosk, who then transferred it to Petronas Dagangan Bhd on June 22, 1998.

Conspicuously, the MCA state assemblyman, MP and the five city councillors who were supposed to serve the people there failed to take up the case. Only when Kulasegaran was again appointed legal advisor to the committee which took up the issue was construction stopped on the 70 percent completed petrol station. Once again a piece of land meant for the residents of Taman Rishah was left alone.

Last year, the Barisan Nasional's appointed mayor for the first time in history went on a 'moral-rampage' executing his own version of the Talibanic-rules under the noses of the MCA and Gerakan councillors. No one from the MCA or Gerakan make any effort to stop the mayor from using the assessment tax money to fund his vision of a morally clean Ipoh without giving a second thought that weeding out corruption and misused of public funds is also one of the key moral issue which he did not dare to pursue.

MBI enforcement offices issued a total of 170 summonses on couples holding hands for the first five months of 2003 before DAP brought this issue to the open. DAP immediately mounted a campaign against MBI and the issuance of summonses was stopped indefinitely. Why bother to waste Ipoh assessment tax money for upkeep of an enforcement team to keep an eye on couples strolling in parks when the real moral issue is corruption and misused of public funds?

Ironically last year, as a result of endless incompetent use of public funds, a financial crisis finally dawned on the MBI. Garbage trucks could not collect garbage regularly because they were unable to pay for their diesel supply. Consequently, more than 300 workers had no work for two days.

Garbage began to pile up and Ipoh which was once known to be the cleanest town (now a city) in Malaysia had become the hallmark of incompetent use of public funds by the MBI. Where's all the people's money gone? Ipoh assessment rate does not come cheap, it is one of the highest in Malaysia.

Another shameful act of MBI was the renaming the road name, Jalan Koo Chong Kong to Jalan Tabung Haji. Koo Chong Kong was the Perak chief police officer when he was assassinated by two communist gunmen at the Jalan Fair Park junction in Ipoh. To honour him, a road behind the police station was named after him. It was a befitting honour for a man who had served the country bravely. But the Sub-Committee for Renaming Roads headed by the mayor went ahead to rename the road, infuriating the family members of Koo Chong Kong, and more so the people of Ipoh. The road was again renamed Koo Chong Kong.

The list will go on and on until we set it right to remove these sycophantic MCA and Gerakan members of parliament and state assemblymen who do not seem to work for the people but for their bosses. To them, their bosses come first and the people come last.