Of toll concession and immigrants

I was reading the news the other day about the issue of whether or not the toll concession agreement should be made public. It would seem that the venerable Work Minister put forward his suggestion to the Cabinet, that perhaps it would be best if the public be able to see the documents and judge for themselves the merit of such documents. In an unrelated news, the exalted IGP suggested that immigrants be confined or restricted to their work premises so that it would be easier to monitor their movement. The suggestion was based on the assumption that such restriction will reduce the number of crimes being committed in this country.

Again both of these events seem unrelated, on the surface at least. But if we ponder deeper on these issues, we will realized that such issues touches the very basic of our nations principals. Both issues have its roots in the basic principal of democracy and human rights. The concessions issue touches on the freedom of informations, for which without such freedom the public will have literally no ability to decide properly the course of the nation. Whereas the immigrants issue, touches on the freedom of movement, for which without such freedom, I can barely imagine the consequence.

So, after 50 years of Merdeka, 50 years of nation building we still have amongst our top officials those who do not seem to grasp the basic notion of a free and democratic nation. It is fortunate that our beloved Prime Minister seems to be the wiser man in both of these events. I believe he have commented the best way possible for a person in his position and hopefully, just hopefully a greater freedom as enshrined within our Constitution shall prevailed in the end.