The recent flash floods that hit Penang was indeed a natural catastrophe that took most of us by surprise. As usual, BN component parties such as UMNO, MCA and Gerakan wasted no time to politicize the entire ordeal – which is not unusual and highly expected of them.
To date, several traditional media outlets (i.e. BN owned newspapers) have begun spreading fallacious and hyper- exaggerated accounts, with the main objective being to discredit and mar the Pakatan Harapan led Penang State Government.
Since the “political tsunami” of 2008, Penang has undergone transformative reforms both political and economically. In other words, these positive changes have been felt by all who reside within the state as well as those from outside. However, due to the rigid centralized system of our Federation, the separation of powers – federal vs state or in other words, Barisan Nasional vs Pakatan Harapan provides one of the main challenges that hinder democracy.
The system we have places every state government and local council at the mercy of the powerful federal government. The latter must grant approval even for the most basic infrastructure projects, which is not by itself wrong but unfortunately for us, our federal government has the reputation of withholding funding and rejecting projects based on political considerations.
According to reports, the 11th Malaysian Plan was supposed to set aside allocations for Penang for a much needed RM350 million flood mitigation project. Not surprisingly, the Najib administration rejected and appeals are still being made by the state.
Issues of flooding in Penang is not a new phenomenon, it happens quite regularly due to monthly precipitation forecast and volume, and is made worse by infrastructural neglect and uncontrolled development in previous years by the Gerakan state government which had overseen the planning of Penang.
In other nations, in particular Germany, city planners and civil engineers would make hydraulic calculations for drainage construction (i.e. volume, maximum capacity, water level, etc.) that are based on a 100 year flooding event. Why a 100 year projection and not 200 years? The answer is purely based on cost efficiency. A drainage system that could prevent a 200 year flooding would obviously increase construction costs significantly which would then, be impossible to fund. The national budget would be insufficient, therefore, the compromise is to shave off a century, assuming that the quality of the concrete could last between 50 to 100 years.
The 100 year flood simply means that constructions of drainages systems will “allow” floods to occur once in every 100 years. Such calculations are based on the amount of average rain fall per year, which is then dynamically updated depending on current and relative weather observations. Current projects within cities and especially densely populated areas must follow stringent regulations to prevent damages or at least, minimize the collateral damages brought upon by major natural disasters – in this case, major flooding events.
But let’s be clear, even with magnanimous fundings, floods cannot be absolutely prevented but it can be controlled and as a result, damages to property and lives can be minimized significantly.
I must reiterate that the present state government cannot be blamed for Gerakan’s inefficiencies because they failed to plan ahead and lacked the foresight to prevent this regular flooding event – which could have been easily prevented if they had not cut corners and had seriously upheld the state’s stakeholders best interest at heart.
The current Penang state government is simply repairing the damages and doing its best to upgrade and improve the lives of Penangites – both on the island and the mainland, with the limitations and restrictions imposed by a federal government who is bent on ‘teaching us a lesson for voting the wrong party into power’.