satu lagi projek baziran nasional (BN)

(translated: another  national waste project)

the new istana negara at jalan duta!

on my return trip from selangau, sarawak, i stayed over at sharon’s and in the morning she bought me to the new istana construction site and i took several pictures of the site… from a far, the opposite side. luckily i have my new olympus 26x zoom camera, where i can take close up pictures though i’m far away (all the pictures were taken standing at the same distance). of course we dare not stand too close to take pictures as the workers will wonder who we were spying on them, so the best thing to do was to stand opposite the construction site.  i was told by sharon that earlier there was a signboard that reads ‘satu lagi projek barisan nasional’ but guess now they had taken it down.

another picture showing a wider view.

i wonder how many of you remember this project which was announced in as far back as 2006? and scheduled to complete in 2009! but look at it now – 2010 – it’s not even half complete, i think. i was told by sharon that the site of this new istana was suppose to be a park but now they had turned it into a very expensive exclusive project.  there is already an istana in jalan istana, sg besi, why the need for another one?

i believe when the project was announced, there were a lot of controversy eg no high cost of the project, no open tender, contract awarded to small, unknown company.  also, according to this blog, this new istana project is that will cost as high as RM1 billion is not what the king wanted but the project is for certain parties with hidden agenda to profit using the royalty’s name.

Kos pembinaan Istana Negara baru di Jalan Duta, Kuala Lumpur,yang menelan belanja RM 1 billion disifatkan sebagai bukan atas kemahuan Yang Dipertuan Agong Sultan Mizan Zainal Abidin tetapi disebabkan oleh pihak berkepentingan yang mempunyai agenda tertentu untuk mengaut untung yang lebih dengan menggunakan nama institusi raja-raja.

if you want to learn more about the project, you can visit maverick’s blog or the malaysianjustice blog or the star.  you can also do aa google search on ‘istana negara baru‘ and you’ll see many blogs and websites talking about it.

who was the contractor who got this project? see here, the signboard… maya maju.

to know more about maya karin, again go to maverick’s blog (or again do a google search).

i understand that originally this site where the istana negara baru was constructed was meant to be a public park.  with KL being turned into such a concrete jungle, don’t you think a park would be much better? a place for the busy, stressed out KLites to relax after a hard-day’s work.  well, a park won’t cost that much – that’s good news for people like us, tax payers but ahhh… not so good for the BN and their croonies! after all, you know lah, BN is famous for its baziran nasional project.