(When it comes to crime, it always pays to have another set of eyes on the street for catch criminals in their act. The role of CCTVs in prevention of crime cannot be dismissed – it works 24 by 7 and 365 days without taking rest and it is impartial too. Infographic source: http://visual.ly)
The month April proving to be an interesting month for me
We have walked into the age of GST and the night before was rather comical – I saw a family piling up their grocery items onto the trolley to the brim. Didn’t they know that naturally there will be some items which will see the price going down with GST and there will be some with increased price?
The issues that will come with the introduction of GST maybe too early to comment. It is one good way to ensure that the Government gets its money for the development of the country. After all the, the oil and gas industry is not doing well and hence there would be less income for the Government. But there will be issues, no doubt especially with how the Government will be using the money from the GST collected (hope they will not be buying new plane and politicians taking too many overseas trips). I hope they don’t shoot themselves in the leg by imposing GST but at the same time, maintain their lavish lifestyle, wastage and unnecessary overseas trips.
Anyway, let’s move on with another news. Amidst the arrests a number of journalists recently and many arguments for and against hudud, PAS finally asked the right question:-
PAS Selangor Youth, claimed in a statement on Wednesday that hudud was the answer to the rising crime rate in the country and if DAP, for one, was against the punishment, it should counter-propose solutions.
(Source)
Finally an intelligent question and it should be interesting to see how DAP counter propose solutions to fight crime in this country. Actually it is a good question for any political party out there and citizens who may not agree that we need another set of laws in this country to fight country. If you ask me, there are couple of things can be done or rather, should be revisited.
For start, how about re-looking into how we can tighten up the security and vetting of “visitors” coming into the country, not for business or pleasure but rather for a more sinister reasons:-
A 45-year-old commandant of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (Isis) was detained by the Malaysian Police Counter Terrorism unit in Kuala Lumpur on January 31. Intelligence sources said the man from the Middle East who arrived here mid-January was detained at a four-star hotel near Bukit Bintang
(Source)
In the past, the police have arrested a number of foreigners involved in terrorism. How they managed to slip into the country unnoticed?
And if you have read the previous blog posts, enough have probably been said on the so-called Nigerian “students” who end up caught for drug related offences. The same have been mentioned on the Iranians. And before that, the many illegal Indonesians and Filipinos. Things have improved especially with the creation of MMEA and the establishment of ESSZONE and the biometrics exercise. But there are still areas that need to be improved especially with the foreigners coming in from the Thailand and via KLIA2. Still remember the famed Latin American criminals?
And since early 2014, we had Operation Cantas which proves rather success:-
Police arrested 44,343 suspects in ‘Op Cantas Khas’ until Dec 31, last year since the nationwide special anti-crime operation was launched on Aug 17. Inspector-General of Police, Tan Sri Khalid Abu Bakar said the operation obviously had positive results, whereby the crime index dropped by 4.3 per cent.
(Source)
Then there was a glimpse of “hope” when the government announced this:-
If you buy a motorcycle for your son and he rides it without a licence, you will now have to pay a RM300 fine. On top of that, your son will be fined RM300 for the offence — which obviously you have to pay. If you are unable to pay the RM600, the police keeps the bike.
The new ruling which comes into force on February 2, will affect thousands of parents who buy small motorcycles for their children to go to school. These students have been involved in minor accidents that go unreported and are also known to have joined Mat Rempit in illegal road races.
(Source)
Interestingly I almost knock down 2 boys on the motorcycle, clearly under aged and not wearing helmet and was riding on the wrong side of the road. No police around to catch these pests and get their parents down to the station. And last week, I was on the way back from donating blood and I used the Federal Highway and traffic was heavy as usual. My dad was sitting next to me and remarked that it was an unnecessary traffic jam and he was right. One main reason there was a traffic jam was due to the shameless idiots who use the emergency lane and cuts into the main lane.
Obviously we cannot expect the police to be around at all places and time. There are better things for them to do. There was a dire shortage of men in blue as well.
The IGP reckons that the force need to recruit between 6,000 and 7,000 new personnel every year. He even said that the country need more policemen to effectively carry out policing matters nationwide. That is a valid point – without enough men on the ground, policing would certainly be less effective. But moving forward, it was disappointing to hear the same IGP despite the dire shortage of men in the force, he rather harp on monitoring the social medias.
Yes, he may not have meant it that way but certainly his statement in light of crime and shortage of men did not go well with most Malaysians. This perception need to be changed drastically. The police can still keep their monitoring over the social media but let a specialised team in cyber laws to police to do it. Does it really need an IGP to do the monitoring himself? That is certainly not the right allocation of resources. The IGP has better things to do, I am sure.
And to help with the shortage of men in blue, the local authorities (instead of private companies, to avoid argument of cronyism) can further assist by installing more CCTVs at key areas and do the monitoring on behalf.
In that sense, AES would have greatly help to enforce the traffic laws. But no thanks to the oppositions who barked on the wrong issue and a government with a flip-flop mind, enforcement via AES was put on hold. That was a wrong move indeed. They should bring back the enforcement by AES and by a greater number. This will assist the police to reallocate resources for other work.
We don’t need another law but we certainly need to improve on how we enforce the law. That is what is more important. That is what the country needs. And that’s where we need to focus our energy, time and resources on.