Are We Prepared for Crisis?

I spoke to Azudin Fuad yesterday about the unfortunate fate of KD Sri Inderapura, the Royal Malaysian Navy's vessel which caught fire at the Naval Base in Lumut and now lies at the bottom of the sea presumably within our waters, still laden with its cargo supposedly made up of spares for the military to be sent to Sabah. What is worse there is still millions of litres of fuel in it just waiting to spill into the ocean.

What is appalling nobody seemed to have the sense of urgency to re float the vessel and siphon out the fuel before a catastrophe happens. It appears that nobody cared as to what the consequences be on the environment, especially to the livelihood of the fisherman around Pangkor and Lumut.By right all the relevant agencies such as the DOE, The Maritime Authority, RMN and the Fisheries Department should form a task force and monitor the situation 24 hours daily. Azudin who has friends in the Navy informed me that Lumut Naval Base is not properly equipped to deal with fire and this is mind-boggling. How can we afford to acquire assets like submarines but the Naval Base does not have the capability of putting out fires should any of the vessels catch fire? Furthermore the Command structure to tackle such an emergency must be unambigious and clear-cut.

This reminds me of my short tenure of nine months as Deputy-Secretary General of the Ministry of Information in 1992 where I was shocked to know that nobody was entrusted with the responsibility of managing safety in case of fire occurring within the Angkasapuri. Without further ado I revived the non-functioning comittee on fire-prevention as stipulated for installations which has a high risk, such as a radio and TV stations. As safety was under my charge at that time, I quickly appointed a senior engineer with RTM to be responsible for ensuring that preventive measures are taken and also to ensure fire drills are instituted. Everyone from the bottom of the ladder right up to the Secretary-General should be conscious of the fact that owing to the nature of work which the staff of Angkasapuri is involved in, safety should be our top priority. I was also disappointed with the lackadaisical attitude of the auxiliary police who were stationed at the entrance and at the strategic perimeters of the facility and beat them up into shape. For my concern and the measures which I adopted to make the personnel working in Angkasapuri be mindful of safety, I was nicknamed " The IGP" by Tok Mat, then Minister of Information.

The issue which I would like to raise here is that where safety and lives are concerned, our government servants are too complacent and this is a reflection of the public in general. A clear evidence of this is our "Ops Sikap" which had been in operation for donkey years and very little ground is achieved. I shudder to think what would happen if we have another "tsunami-like" disaster hitting us again. Crisis management should be inculcated right from primary stage of our public right up to the senior citizens as how to cope in emergencies or disasters such as fire, floods and major disasters. I do not think many of us know even how to deal with kitchen fire and very few install fire detectors in their homes or kitchens, what more to have fire extinguishers.

I have been given to understand that should we are confronted with war, this country could be easily be defeated within a matter of days because our state of preparedness to meet such a contingency is severely lacking.For that matter even a small incident such as the landslide at Bukit Antarabangsa sometime ago had proven to us that our Government emergency response was chaotic and lacked urgency. May ALLAH S.W.T. save us from much greater calamity.