A Doctor in The House: A Memoir of Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad (109 page)

I took a great deal of interest in the preparations for the Games. We decided to build a new sports complex in Bukit Jalil outside the city centre. With huge numbers of vehicles already clogging the city streets, the old stadium in the middle of Kuala Lumpur was no longer suitable. We needed a new and bigger stadium, another for indoor events, an Olympic-sized pool and a games village for the participants. We identified a number of existing playing fields in and around Kuala Lumpur, which were suitable for various games, and which would be needed when several events had to be held simultaneously. We also built a shooting range in Langkawi. The organisers had wanted to hold the shooting competition in Kuala Lumpur, but I thought it would be good if the people of Langkawi were given a chance to attend at least a part of the Games. Besides, it was also an opportunity for participants to see what an attractive tourist destination the island is.

The new Games complex was designed and built entirely by Malaysians. It was important to me that venues were adequate not just for the impending Games, but perhaps for the Olympics as well. The day may come—maybe not in my lifetime—when we will host this most prestigious of sporting events. I don’t like piecemeal extensions so by spending a little bit more at the initial stages, we might avoid the need for ugly and costly additions later. What we built served our purpose nicely. One of the features of the main stadium was the roof which was held up by cable tension, a considerable feat of engineering.

We held a series of dry runs to identify and correct any flaws in the facilities and arrangements. No matter how much you may have worked things out on paper, there is nothing like trying them out because you will always find things you thought would work that actually do not. We were also worried that we would not complete the work on time, so I went to the worksites often and asked for progress reports. I knew that if I didn’t and, for example, supplies of a particular building material ran short, the project people would simply wait, pleading that they could not go on. Delay and inactivity do not bother some people. So sometimes you have to push.

The Games were held from 11 to 21 September and they were judged to be a great success. A record number of 70 countries and territories, and 3,638 athletes took part. A few team events such as rugby, hockey and cricket were included for the first time, drawing world-class sportsmen and women. For me, the highlight was that Malaysia did very well overall and we won 10 gold medals, our biggest Games haul ever.

My schedule was programmed so that I could attend most of the finals, with the most important one being the 100-metre dash. At the last minute, Olympic medallist Ato Boldon of Trinidad and Tobago had decided to take part in the Games, so everyone was looking forward to the race. Many of our guests told us that they thought this was among the best-organised Commonwealth Games ever, and everyone involved was pleased with the facilities and with how the events were programmed and coordinated. The spectators also seemed to have enjoyed themselves. When I rode in an open-top car around the track during the opening ceremony, the crowd’s thunderous applause felt genuine and it really warmed the heart.

The Games were the one bright spot at a time when other matters in the country were not going well and I was fighting battles on many fronts. Besides the currency crisis, Anwar had begun going around the country campaigning against me. There was even the threat that he would lead a demonstration of his followers to the closing ceremony at the complex, so I was advised not to ride around in the convertible I had used at the opening. Security considerations cannot be ignored, but I was very disappointed.

There were also minor hitches disrupting the smooth flow of the Games. Queen Elizabeth II had flown in for the closing ceremony and things went without any problems until she was to make her speech. At the end she was supposed to say “I declare the Games closed”, which was the cue for the fireworks to start. Unfortunately, the person who invited the Queen to the podium used the word “closed” before her and that set off the fireworks. She tried to speak above all the noise, but eventually gave up.

Still, the Games proved that we had the capacity to organise international events. After we had staged the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) in Kuala Lumpur in 1989, Harare, the next host, was told it had a tough act to follow. Even if we had been asked to hold the Olympic Games, I felt confident we would now do a good job.

While we had proved ourselves to be efficient organisers, we continued to be poor at managing our facilities. We want beautiful buildings but we don’t seem to know how to maintain them. At the old Seri Perdana for example, the Prime Minister’s residence in Kuala Lumpur, a pool was built under the staircase for keeping Japanese koi fish. But it never saw a drop of water and it ended up being used as a storage area. In many places there are beautiful fountains and clocks which do not work. With our new impressive Games complex, we now sorely needed managers who could ensure events would continue to be held at the facilities long after the Games were over. They did not need to be just sporting events; concerts and other musical performances would also have been suitable. This did not happen often, although some schools do hold their sports carnivals there. We seem capable of building grand facilities but are less than talented at putting them to good use. Even the Putrajaya International Conference Centre
[1]
 has been underutilised since its opening when the Organisation of the Islamic Conference summit was held there in 2003.
 

We tried as much as possible to encourage the managers to promote the use and maintenance of these facilities, but often they had no idea what to do. There is frequently no budget for it or, if there is, it is a trivial sum, insufficient even to keep the place clean. We have been developing our country for over 50 years and we have been able to transform it into quite a wealthy nation. But we have not developed an appreciation for what we have, nor do we have a strong sense of responsibility.

I think we did better with the Kuala Lumpur International Airport (KLIA) in Sepang, another of what critics call my “megaprojects”. Originally we wanted to put in another runway at Subang International Airport but there was not enough land. To do so we would have had to acquire land belonging to the Rubber Research Institute of Malaysia (RRIM), and cut down irreplaceable rubber trees planted long ago for research purposes.

History shows that we have never been very good at predicting the growth of air travel. Our first airport was located in Sungai Besi and as early as the Tunku’s time, it became clear that it was too small for our needs and too near the city to be expanded. New aircraft were also making a great deal of noise. But the problem the Tunku faced was that people did not want the inconvenience of having the airport located too far away. They wanted it to remain near the city and even suggested relocating the nearby railway line underground so that the runway at Sungai Besi could be extended. The Tunku eventually moved the airport to Subang, where it encroached a little on land belonging to the RRIM. The Institute’s expatriate British scientists protested and resigned over the cutting down of a few rubber trees.

The projection then was that Kuala Lumpur would handle a maximum of 400,000 passengers a year, which meant that an airport with one small terminal building and one runway would be sufficient. Subang International Airport also had the longest runway in Southeast Asia at the time, which made the Tunku very proud. The projection seemed valid since the cost of air travel was beyond what most people could afford at that time and so was not yet popular. But by the 1990s, passenger traffic had reached 10 million a year.

We now needed an additional runway to handle a greater number of flights. Besides requiring more land from the RRIM, building a new runway at Subang would involve relocating industries which had grown around the airfield. There were also housing estates which would be very costly to acquire, and, we had to ask ourselves, what would happen when traffic increased in the future and a third runway would be needed? Clearly, we needed a new airport with enough land for expansion, but it was difficult to find enough vacant land conveniently close to the city. People living close to the proposed airport site would also definitely object to its location. At Tokyo’s Narita International Airport, for example, a second runway could not be built for years because local farmers refused to move out. Their protest against the airport even turned violent and high fences had to be erected and a large police contingent deployed to prevent vandalism.

To ensure enough room for future expansion, we had no choice but to find a location far from the city. We finally identified a parcel of land almost 50km south of Kuala Lumpur, and though this was quite a distance, it was the only piece of land available which had relatively few houses. We had to look ahead, beyond our own lifetimes, to think of expansion 100 years from now. We did not want the same demand for expansion to bedevil future governments. We could not anticipate what shape air travel would take that far into the future, but we knew that air travel would continue to grow. To cope with projected needs, we had to set aside enough land now, before people started building homes close by as airports naturally become growth centres. So we acquired 25,000 acres for the new airport, sufficient to build five runways, two terminal buildings, four satellite buildings and the ability to handle 125 million passengers a year.

I wanted KLIA to be built quickly but the tendering process for such a project could take as many as three years, with enough documents to fill three large rooms. Trying to make sure there would be no bias in the selection of consultants and contractors was important, although the process of doing this was, as I have discussed in an earlier chapter, tricky and unclear.

My desire to build the airport quickly may have resulted in cutting a few corners in the tender process, but when you build things on time or complete them ahead of schedule, you gain. You can save, for example, on the rental of another building leased for temporary use. I have always believed that if you are going to lose money anyway, it is better to get a building done well and early by someone capable than to rely upon someone who may be cheaper but who will do a slipshod job or may not even complete the project.

We appointed Public Works Department engineer Tan Sri Jamilus Hussein to oversee the construction of the entire airport, which began in 1994. A special unit was also set up under the chairmanship of a senior treasury official, Tan Sri Clifford Herbert, to manage the project and resolve any problems. It was gratifying to see our local team managing and coordinating construction work that at times involved an international force of 25,000 workers. The team was able to build roads, specialised and sophisticated buildings and other facilities simultaneously. Since the workers came from Pakistan, Bangladesh, Indonesia and other countries, naturally there were communication problems. Local and foreign contractors had to be managed and directed, and we had to provide accommodation and recreation for all of them. There were quarrels between the different nationalities from time to time, but these blew over. A temporary hotel also had to be built to accommodate the numerous experts and consultants who had to be close to the site for long periods.

Before building began, a few problems had to be solved. For example, the airport site was located on peat soil, which was too soft for the runways. Hundreds of lorries carried away the peat soil that had been dug up by dozens of mechanical hoes, and then carried in limestone and red earth to fill the void. Still, the airport took shape very quickly. Finally, the day came when a Boeing 747 made a trial landing on the first runway. It landed and took off perfectly to the cheers of visiting guests and officials.

Once the construction was completed, the biggest problem we faced was that the multifarious airport operations had to be moved from Subang to Sepang in a single night. Our people went to see how the Munich airport had carried out this transfer exercise. I was invited to take the first domestic flight out from KLIA to Langkawi at 7.20am on 30 June 1998, the morning after the big relocation exercise. The VIP bedroom where my wife and I slept was as cold as a freezer, but the flight went off without any problem. Once I got to Langkawi however, I was told that there had been chaos at the airport that morning as machines broke down and people got lost because of inadequate signage. The airport staff themselves were still not familiar with the facilities and were unable to help the passengers find their way. The local Press went to town with the failures, disregarding the dimension of the massive overnight transfer operation from Subang.

It was, frankly, an amazing feat, and things cannot be expected to work perfectly from the first hour of the first day. Modern airports are extremely complex in design and operation. Arriving passengers have to be separated from those who are departing. Their luggage, passports and health certificates have to be examined. They have to be moved along quickly to avoid congestion, and with the large commercial aircraft that are now flying the skies, the number of passengers involved is huge. When planes arrived at the main terminal building there was no problem, but the trouble started when passengers arrived at the satellite building. Their luggage had to be picked up, loaded onto trucks and brought to the conveyor belt in the main terminal building. These bags were exposed to pilferage, a problem that still has not been fully resolved.

Most other problems, however, were sorted out fairly quickly and KLIA has since become a showpiece for the country. It is repeatedly recognised as the best, intermediate-sized airport in the world. Foreigners, especially those who have read unfavourable comments about Malaysia, arrive at our airport and change their minds immediately. Seeing the huge, ultra-modern structure served by six-lane highways as well as the variegated development all the way to the city convinces them that this is not a typical Third World country mired in backwardness. The road to Sepang used to pass through a swamp but today, there are housing estates on either side. When you build infrastructure, I have always believed, you stimulate growth. The airport has been the catalyst for this multi-billion-dollar development.