PSI = Penang South Islands (rebranding of Penang South Reclamation)

PSI Project’s Unjustifiable Corporate Greed

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1dvqbQlkjIQ&ab_channel=MiddleNation

Transcript downloaded from video

This is supposed to be over, right? I mean why isn't this over? 

The original rationale for the Penang South Reclamation project was that it was needed in order to fund the big master plan for public transport in Penang basically a new LRT but now prime minister Anwar Ibrahim has said that the federal government is going to pay for the new LRT.

So why exactly are we still talking about dumping tons and tons of sand into fishing Waters and building fake islands for no reason off the coast of Penang?

I mean just the fact that Gamuda and SRS Consortium are still insisting on this plan shows that the original rationale for the plan was never the real reason why they wanted to do it. 

It's not about transport; it's not about supporting development and it never was because of course it wasn't.

It's about profit. More specifically, it's about the profits of a multi-billion dollar company being more important than the profitable livelihoods of hundreds of fishermen. This is literally all it's about. 

The idea that small-scale family fishermen have too much money and Gamuda has too little money so everyone in Penang is supposed to band together put fishermen out of work destroy the ecosystem all for the noble cause of increasing Gamuda's profits.

I mean since the federal government is going to fund the new LRT in Penang, we can stop pretending that there's any other narrative going on here any other narrative that is besides the narrative which says that average working-class citizens have a duty to sacrifice their own sustenance for the sake of the super rich. 

I mean even the narrative that the PSI project was needed for Industrial Development has been debunked, back when all of this started they said that they need to build land, because there isn't sufficient land for Industrial Development in Penang. 

But it was just confirmed that there's 12,000 hectares of land available for Industrial Development if Gamuda was interested in doing that there's absolutely no need to build fake land for that purpose.

But of course why would you want to buy or lease existing plots of land when you could just get paid to build land that you will automatically own.

That's a pretty good deal, eh? I mean imagine if normal people had that option if you had the option to not buy a home, but be paid to build a home that you would then automatically own which you could then either sell or lease out for profit.

That's basically what we're talking about here. And studies have shown that property on reclaimed land can bring profits 100 times higher than the cost of building them. So yeah this is why Gamuda is insisting on the PSI project. 

I mean, sure, now they're saying that they're willing to scale it back to one Island, instead of three islands but there's not even a justification for the one Island. Not to mention everybody knows that they're not abandoning the second and the third island. Those are the ones that are going to be lucrative because those are the ones where they can build the high rises in the luxury apartments. 

So you can be sure that when they said we're only going to build one Island, what they meant was we're only going to build one Island at a time. 

Because after all they have the approval to build three, and they've been told that they don't need to get a new environmental impact assessment for a scaled down project. 

So in other words they're going to be operating on the basis of an approval for three islands. They just won't talk about the other two islands until they're ready to build them and all of the current protests have died down. 

And the other thing with this scaled down idea is that if they publicly say that they're only going to build one Island, then that reduces the amount of compensation that they'll have to give to the fishermen. Because if they're going to do three islands then they have to compensate around 450 fishermen

But if they say they're only going to build one Island, then they only have to compensate around 115 fishermen. So when they do get around to building the other two islands they're not gonna have to compensate anybody.

I don't know how anyone can look at this and not think it's atrocious. It's absolutely ludicrous that the PSI project is even still alive, when it is so blatantly a money grab by people who already have more money than the fishermen they're going to put out of work could earn in a lifetime.

This is just unspeakable greed. I mean it doesn't even matter whether or not they have the approval about the environmental impact of the project. There's no justification for the social impact that this project is going to have, and that they know it's going to have.

They know perfectly well that this is going to be devastating for fishermen that's why they're trying to lure them with promises of compensation and gifts and whatnot but what they're offering to the fishermen is absolutely insignificant compared to the tens of billions if not hundreds of billions of ringgit that Gamuda is going to make from this project.

The PSI project is about one thing and one thing only. And that is the arrogant and obnoxious belief that average citizens and workers are obliged to sacrifice their own livelihoods, and their own environment for the sake of the rich, and for the sake of the profit maximization of a huge private company.

It is time for the relationship between the people and business to stop being such a one-way Street. I mean all of the things that Gamuda is offering the fishermen as an incentive to get them to go along with the PSI project, they could just give them anyway, in support of entrepreneurialism and food security.

Because fishing and small-scale subsistence farming these are things that need to be boosted in Malaysia not undermined. An important company like Gamuda should be encouraging these things if they care about the overall health of the economy of the country and not just their own balance sheet.

Oh, and please don't tell me that the PSI project is going to create jobs.

No, it will destroy independent livelihoods and turn entrepreneurs into captive labor.

Men who are going out every day on their own boats seeking their sustenance and putting food not only on their own tables - but on everyone's tables - will be turned into wage slaves, whose earning potential will be dictated by Gamuda, not by their own initiative.

Honestly, this is absolutely the wrong direction to take your economy empowering the powerful and enriching the rich is not a sustainable economic model for Any Nation.

Really, Gamuda and SRS Consortium need to just do the decent thing at this point and let go of the PSI project. Yes, that will mean letting go of potential profits for your company. But insisting on carrying out this project means sabotaging the existing livelihoods that hundreds of Malaysian families depend on.

Version with Malay voice over https://www.tiktok.com/@themiddlenation/video/7235032565952843010?_r=1&_t=8cSfHatQxPd