By Goh Ban Lee.

ACCORDING to Penang Chief Minister Lim Guan Eng, Singapore Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew had commented that Penang’s infrastructure was not as good as that of Ipoh and Seremban.

Always a politician, Lim not only revealed this nugget of an observation, but also took the opportunity to point to the “18 years of graceful decline” under the leadership of Tan Sri Dr Koh Tsu Koon.

When told of Lim’s remarks, the former chief minister, who also had a meeting with Lee, pointed out that roads came under the state government and local councils. He reminded the reporters that the state had been under the Pakatan Rakyat government since March 8, 2008, implying that the present state government should be blamed.

The above wish-list is relatively easy to make. The difficult part is getting it implemented under the existing political and economic conditions and administrative capabilities. Complicating matters, it is not easy to differentiate between the good guys from the others.

The temptation to rehash old ideas should be avoided. Take, for example, the issue of mobility.

Lim is still talking about Penang Outer Ring Road (PORR) and has called on Penangites to voice their views. But this highway was proposed about 30 years ago! Koh was committed to it in his 18 years as the chief minister.

It would be an irony for Penangites who voted for a change of government only to get the same stale serving.

Besides, the traffic conditions in Penang have changed dramatically since the 1970s. The concept of good transport has also changed, with the use of private cars to go to work getting the last priority. The focus should be on public transport and not the outdated PORR.

Penang could and should learn from Singapore about public transport. The world is also learning from the island state. In fact, Penang could learn from the republic about housing, open space and landscaping, public safety, pedestrian walkways and cleanliness, just to name the obvious ones.

Most important of all, Penang and for that matter Malaysia should learn from Singapore about compliance with municipal rules.

This may be a good opportunity to remind Malaysians of the story of Michael Fay, an American living in Singapore, and how Lee, then the prime minister, dealt with the issue of good governance.

Fay was 18 years old when he was found guilty of spray-painting cars. He was sentenced to an 83-day jail term and six strokes of the cane. Prominent personalities, including US President Bill Clinton appealed for leniency. Singapore came under severe criticism of being a barbaric state.

Singapore stood firm. Indeed, Lee personally wrote an article in Time magazine. Quote: “Can we govern if we let him off and not cane him? Can we then cane other foreigners or our own people? I am an old style Singaporean who believes that to govern you must have a certain moral authority.

"If we do not cane him because he is an American, I believe we’ll lose our moral authority and our rights to govern (May 9, 1994).”

Singapore did show that it heard the appeals and reduced the caning to four strokes.

There is, of course, no need to ape everything Singapore does. After all, according to a former president of Indonesia, it is no more than a red dot on the map! Besides, there is no way Malaysians or Penangites can pay the chief executives of the government what Singaporeans are paying their prime minister and ministers.

** Reproduced with permission. This article first appread in the June 16, 2009 of theSun. Dr Goh Ban Lee is a retired academic interested in urban governance, housing and urban planning.

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