With reference to Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak’s 'gifts' to Malaysians to mark his 100 days in office, I as a humble citizen would like to give brief comments to some of the ‘gifts’. Any offence to beneficiary parties is regretted:

From Sept 1, motorists who use tolls 80 times or more in one month will enjoy a 20-percent discount:

Comment: This only plays into the hands of the toll operators. Usually once you start using toll roads, you won’t stop due to the convenience. It doesn’t address the core issue of lop-sided agreements between highway concessionaires and the government.

The government will add more taxi permits. As of now, 70,000 individual taxi permits have been offered and 3,000 more permits will be approved in the next three months:

Comment: While there will be genuine taxi drivers who will benefit from this, this will also increase the population of unscrupulous taxi drivers who don’t use the meter. The root cause of our poor public transportation system and undisciplined taxi drivers are still not addressed.

The government will take some drastic measures to fight crime and corruption, the details of which will be revealed at the end of this month:

Comment:

Should we give him the benefit of the doubt here? Such empty promises on crime has been made before.

As of June 2009, the government has also resolved 46 percent of 34,000 delayed citizenship applications. The rest of it will be settled at the end of the year:

Comment:

This is laudable move. However, let’s hope the government will not practice approval of citizenship applications on a 'selective' basis to promote a political or demographic agenda.

The government will build more roads in Sabah and Sarawak - from 750km to 1,500km - and this will be addressed in the 10th Malaysian Plan:

Comment: Whilst this is commendable, you get the feeling that some cronies are just going to get richer and are jumping for joy at this moment.

Driving licence fees for motorcyclists will be reduced from the existing RM500-RM700 to RM211 (beginning Sept 1):

Comment:

Yes, excellent move with all the Mat Rempit problems we have been facing. Perhaps this money saved can be focused on improving public transportation in all states.