First, scooter politics, now it is horse politics

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When the Penang state government and its municipal council (MPPP) wanted to come up with a ban on the water scooter rides in the Batu Ferringhi beaches in Penang for a number of safety reasons, the state Umno leaders are quick to raise their voice claiming that what the state government and the MPPP are doing were damaging the livelihood of those Malay businessmen in the state.

And MCA joined Umno chorus by saying that by banning the water scooter rides in the Penang beaches would hurt the tourism and drive away visitors. MCA via tourism ministry also threatened to cut its federal government allocation on tourism to the state.

When the water scooter rider hit a visiting Chinese tourist, MCA made an about turn to its previous statement. MCA blamed the Penang state government for allowing these water scooter activities to operate in the state unchecked and that is why such incident happened. Besides, the MCA leaders in the state also blamed the state government for failing to prevent such incident of which it will effect the tourism industry in the state.

Then the Penang state government took into consideration of the public outcry on the tourists' safety in the state's beaches, and instructed MPPP to impose the ban on all water scooter rides and its activities in the state's tourism sectors.

After the ban was imposed, Umno came crying again by claiming that the ban on the water scooter activities in the beaches had in fact damaged the livelihood of these alleged Malay businessmen who were operating such businesses.

Umno still failed to realize why such activities have to be banned. It is because these water scooters business operators had failed to comply the safety measures enforced by the state government and the determination of zones that allow such water scooter rides to be carried out.

These Umno leaders had said that, by imposing only certain zones in beaches to allow such activities to be carried out would mean their businesses and profits would be badly affected. So, what actually do these Umno leaders prioritize? The profits of these Umno businessmen or the safety of the people and the tourists?

And there came another incident at the beach recently where a horse kicked and injured a child while she was playing on the beach with her sister. The horse rider ran away to avoid detection by the authorities but he was later caught with the help of some witnesses and beach goers.

Following the incident, the Penang state government decided that, enough is enough! The horse riding activities in the beaches was banned with immediate effect.The safety of the people and the tourists are now the state government's top agenda: to prevent such dangerous and life threatening incident from reoccurring.

An MCA vice president who is also the tourism minister immediately mounted an attack against the Penang state government for imposing this ban on the horse riding activities in the state's renowned tourists beaches, saying that the state administration should not ban the horse riding activities on its beaches completely by saying that instead the state should come up with a designated zone in order to allow these horse riding activities to continue.

Now both Umno and MCA are making the fuss out of this incident again in order to achieve its political mileage. First its was the scooter politics and now it is the horse politics. Umno is claiming the ban had affected the businesses of these alleged Malay operators and by imposing certain zones to allow these horse ridings would also hurt their businesses. MCA was saying that the state need not ban such activities but instead should designate certain zones in order for them to continue operating.

Did you all see? What MCA was suggesting now had contravened the protest mentioned by Umno. Umno wanted those horses to be back on those beaches as before and MCA said these horses should be in some certain zones. In the end both Umno and MCA leaders are blaming the Penang state government for banning these horse riding businesses.

Stop playing so cheap and low class politics!

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