The anti-Penang Outer Ring Road committee wants Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi to make good his promise to instill good governance in his administration by scrapping the controversial highway project immediately.

Central ad-hoc committee on Porr coordinator Linda Lim said that the resident group, comprising six committees, has written to Abdullah to re-emphasize the lack of transparency of the proposed project.

"The people are waiting to see he fulfills his promise for a clean, incorruptible, accountable and trustworthy government," said Lim.

"We need to see reform, we need to see changes in the administration. We need good governance, accountability, openness and transparency," she stressed.

Lim said the issue of transparency and openness regarding the Porr project remains clouded in several areas such as the 'no open tender' for the bidding.

Other contentions of the anti-Porr group include the project being entrusted to an unknown RM 50,000 company with no track record.

Corruption case study

Lack of experience, management skills and financial resources of the concessionaire, Peninsular Metro Works (PMW) and the absence of public consultation before the government decided to implement the project was also questioned by the group.

To make matters worse, the RM1.02 billion highway project was labelled as a "first class corruption case study", "an example of bad governance" and a "disaster" by local corruption watchdog Transparency International (TI) Malaysia chairperson Tunku Abdul Aziz Tunku.

Abdul Aziz said this recently in a talk themed 'Penang Lecture 2004: Governance in Search of Public Trust' organised by the state government's think-tank Social Economic Research Institute (Seri).

Meanwhile, Lim said Penangites do not understand how the state cannot perceive nor comprehend the issues behind Porr.

"We have on many occasions brought these issues to the chief minister's attention but they were brushed off in a cavalier fashion," she said.

"We appeal to Abdullah to defer the Porr project and to ensure that the state places top priority on implementing sustainable transport options.

"We do not want a short-term measure like Porr, which will do irreparable harm and damage to the island and its people," Lim added.

Umno the shadow gov't

In a related issue, financial analyst Cheah Kah Seng said that every time Penang Chief Minister Koh Tsu Koon (left) defends the Porr project, he pulls out the "economic development" card.

"He does not dare to take a hard look at the lack of open bidding, the lack of publicly available environmental, traffic, and feasibility studies on Porr," said Cheah.

"He is too scared to mention the likelihood that the Porr project if implemented in the current structure will fail miserably," he added.

Cheah said Koh had "sidestepped the governance issue completely", even though he is the head of the state government, which indicated that Umno is really the shadow government and the true power monger behind the scene in Penang.

"Koh is only a puppet to satisfy the vanity of the Chinese voters in Penang," said Cheah, who speaks and writes frequently on social problems faced by Penangites.