To call the ruling class (I refer to the business as well as the political elite) naive or silly because of their fondness for associating mega-projects with 'world class' or first-world status is in itself naive.

(By the way, to describe a project as 'world class' is really a misnomer because no such standard exists. For an enlightening discussion on this, check out this book called The witch doctors by two writers from The Economist .)

The real reason that the ruling class take this approach is simply because this is where the most amount of money is to be made by the ruling class. It's a win-win scenario as far as they are concerned.

Projects are usually given to companies with zero track record (or their track record is from other projects given by the government) except that they are backed by big names or happen to be the nominee of a big name.

These companies then either sell the project along to some other company that can do it or just sub-contract it to their cronies who will then sub-contract it again and again as far as it can go.

What happens in the end is that a project which was tagged at about say RM1 billion would only end up with RM300 million on the ground ... that is, if we are lucky. And the buildings we get are shoddy or badly designed or just useless. And the ruling class would have new lines in their pockets. Have you ever wondered how ministers can always cite how much a project is estimated to cost before even coming up with the details of the project?

So the bigger the project the bigger the piece of the pie there is to share among the ruling class.

That's why when people like Gerakan's Dr S Vijayaratnam say stuff like 'The government should concentrate on simpler and realistic ventures rather than world-class white elephants if poor work ethics continue to predominate the Malaysian mentality', I wonder whether they know how naive and silly they sound ([#1] Pointless to build world-class white elephants: Gerakan [/#], Feb 13). The simple reason why the government wants 'world-class white elephants' is because that's where the money is made!

There is virtually no money to be made in maintenance as far as the government or these big businessmen are concerned. There are no instant millions to be made. Maintenance is hard work - and requires diligence, perseverance and small profits. That is why all these massive buildings and monuments they build after a while fall into disrepair and filth. There is no money to be made in giving decent wages to teachers, doctors in government, lower ranking judicial officers, policemen or the lowly civil servants, for example, because the ruling class doesn't make a million there.