COMMENT | Will there be a swansong for this circus?

COMMENT | The circus is in town to give us our seasonal dose of fun. There will be plenty of oohs and aahs when the artistes take us through a series of tricks and slapstick to tickle your funny bone. The simple disappearance of a wad of cash with a rustle of the fingers no longer excites the audience - us. The new tricks involve millions and even projects (as in infrastructure and farms) totally disappear.

I made my maiden contribution as an astute observer of such happenings in what I subsequently labelled (rightly or wrongly) as the “Annual Catalogue of Abuses”. My musings in 1978 were on these lines: “The Selangor government paid a whopping RM7,000 each for 21-inch television sets for its guest houses when the same sets were advertised for sale in The Malay Mail for RM999 each.”

Yes, another edition of the Auditor-General’s report was published this week and the familiar elements that provided laughter for us in the past continue to amuse us and refresh our thoughts and memories. More abuses, more misuses, more wrongdoings, more exploitations, more manipulations and the descriptions go on and on.

Why am I describing such a serious matter as a circus, you may ask? The answer is simple...