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It was the year after General Election 2004. Bayan Baru traffic was at a crawl from the building works of the tall bypass. But one thing that caught many’s attention was a project for a bridge (50-100 meters long bridge across Bayan Baru coastal road bypass into a Free Trade Zone without the need to use traffic lights).
The entrance to the FIZ was always clogged up with trailers lining up near the ever incompetent useless custom office providing nothing more than rubber stamping and slowing down the bustling manufacturing business that earn foreign currency for Malaysia. Another entrance also led to a traffic light which is clogging up traffic too. For a miserable island with nothing but just a workforce, to churn out world-class standard electronic product is quite a feast for the past 30 years. But that half-hanging bridge has become a real symbol of an eyesore to many working in the Free Industrial Zone area. As of today, it is still not finished, yes, not abandoned but still work in progress after three long years. To tell the world that we have the best talents to attract investors would have been a real joke. For a short bridge that is less than 100 meters long and taken three years to complete is beyond any excuse. Running across just a drainage, no major engineering effort is needed. But it has taken that long. If given a opportunities, I would like to name it the Koh Tsu Khoon Bridge as in memory of the most useless Chief Clown Minister of Penang ever had. He proudly proclaimed the LRT project and some longest second bridge to complete in three years in the RMK9. That was a nice joke too. A ~23 KM bridge to complete in three years? This is less than 100-meter long bridge and taken more than three years even without any engineering challenge running across a drainage. Every time he comes around to one of the major multinational companies to give a speech, he always brings up the 7 Samurais story. Little does he know that in the movie some Samurais died. Is he implying something or just plain ignorant. Talk about someone from Ivy League like Princeton, and Chicago University. Perhaps he should go back to being an academician and hopefully helps Malaysia win a Nobel prize instead of messing up Penang further. Many people heave a sigh of relief when it was indicated that he would be leaving for federal office, at least stop further damages being done to that little island. 
Picture taken around January..
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