Why Pick on PENANG Folks or RM2billion is Small Change.

The RM30 billion extra budget for the 9MP may be necessary to offset rising costs if this had not been considered before.

However to "defer" the Penang monorail that is budgeted at RM2b appears to be rather petty and shows the vindictive nature of federal leaders especially as they promote public transport after the recent fuel hikes.

malaysiakini has the article headed:
"EPU: Penang monorail, Porr shelved"
http://www.malaysiakini.com/news/85085

To quote the EPU Director-General,
"They have been deferred because the priority is given to the people-centred project," Sulaiman said

I guess someone thinks the monorail is just an expensive toy like railway sets for kids to play.
It seems that the EPU may not be the best body to decide on public transport issues in Penang as they are situated in the fairyland called Putrajaya.

This is a form of taxation without representation and shows a major weakness of central planning. Otherwise with all the Malaysia Plans we should have reached developed nation status by now.

To put things into some perspective, the government spends RM1.5m each month on contracts just to upkeep the grounds in Putrajaya. Now that is a "people-centred" project.

Perhaps one way to improve government accountability would be for the federal government to provide development funds to all state governments in the form of say a 15% refund of all taxes collected - such as income tax, company tax.

This money would be used by the states to develop public transport, skills training and maintaining state roads and infrastructure.

The very least the PM could have done was to call the Penang CM to discuss which project he would prefer to defer. Cutting both projects is just being vindictive.