NCER – in the pipeline or just a pipe dream?

This article is posted here as published in The Star, May 13 (page N51) with the title ” Northern region must see growth”.

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 I refer to the report ‘Perak waiting for share of NCER funds’ (The Star, May 10). Perak is the latest state to adopt the Northern Corridor Implementation Agency Act 2008 and is now banking on the Federal Government to fulfill its promise to fairly distribute the needed funds in order to develop the participating states of Northern Corridor Economic Region (NCER).

 

Penang was the first state to adopt the Act, with the intention to speed up the state’s economic development. Thus, it has shown the trust given by the participating states and their intention to work with the Federal Government as to attract and facilitate local and international investments that will subsequently enhance the economic growth of the states in the northern region.       

 

NCER is done with the planning and publicity stage, so we should at least be moving slowly into the implementation part of it. But since the shifts of state governments in most of the northern states, economic growth is obviously not moving fast enough and in some cases not in the right direction. It is sad to learn that the Federal Government has decided to scrap the proposed RM24mil Agropolitan project in Baling, Kedah as it would have helped the Pakatan Rakyat-led state government improve the economic level of the people in the area.  Also in Penang, a tender for the proposed monorail project was already submitted by Scomi Group Berhad but the Federal and state government is taking quite a long time now to decide, although the process was reported as to be “very transparent”.        

 

The Barisan Nasional-led Federal government cannot underestimate the power of newly-elected state governments, as they must be having the support of local people and also trust to manage the economic growth of their respective states.  Under the Act’s Clause 1 (5), all decisions on development projects within the planned Corridor should be made collectively by the members of the NCER board of directors, which comprises of not only the Prime Minister, Deputy Prime Minister and the federal ministers, but also the heads of the four states. Thus, the government at every level should develop and execute policies and proper procedure that that will assist local and international investors to invest in the Corridor.

 

We could learn from the approaches made by the Government of Papua New Guinea regarding their rules and guidelines on investment that has successfully improved its Foreign Direct Investments. In order to promote investors, federal agencies such as the Economic Planning Unit and Federal Town and Country Planning Department (JPBD) should work closely with the state governments and local councils as to ensure the focus of economic and physical developments of the northern states is well managed and is realistic to bring not only growth to the economy but also to incorporate the guiding principles and strategies that will provide complete and sufficient infrastructure, equipped with the latest information technology advancements. It should also solve the pressing local and international issues like the needs of affordable housing, nature’s preservation and also the current global food crisis.

 

The allocation of two representatives from private sector in the board is also crucial to seek fresh ideas and promote involvement from professionals as they also have a lot to offer, and may have alternate views on how to develop the states.

 

There are a lot of other factors that can either boost or deteriorate the success rate of NCER such as our land laws and legal government tender process, but let’s hope that NCER and other Corridors that have been promoted pre-election become a reality.