Malaysia Shy About Cost as a Grand New City Arises
International Herald Tribune
April 27, 1999
Thomas Fuller

Quietly, or as quietly as hundreds of dump trucks, cranes and an army of construction workers can be, Malaysia is proceeding with one of Southeast Asia's biggest and most ambitious construction projects.

Next month, in a clearing where only rubber trees and oil palms once stood, the government will unveil the first phase of a city built entirely from the ground up, a new federal capital to replace Kuala Lumpur.

Thousands of foreign workers from Bangladesh and Indonesia are helping build enough offices and houses to accommodate 330,000 people.

Prime Minister Mahathir bin Mohamad, whose official residence and office are nearly finished, will move to the city, which is 25 kilometers (15 miles) south of Kuala Lumpur, at the end of next month, according to the government-run company charged with building the new city.

The prime minister's office is a green-domed edifice that sits high on a bluff, with moats on three sides. Nearby is a giant mosque and dozens of half-finished government office buildings.

Yet, even as the prime minister prepares his move, the new city is facing uncertainty. Many parts of the project are months behind schedule and plans for a railroad to Kuala Lumpur are stalled.

Diplomats who have been asked to transfer their embassies to Putrajaya say they are not planning to move any time soon, and may never actually move.

Opposition groups deride the project as Prime Minister Mahathir's personal palace and say the 5 billion ringgit ($1.3 billion) expended on the first phase is wasteful, especially after the country's economy shrank by about 6 percent last year. The total estimated cost of the project, which will not be completed for another 15 years, is 20 billion ringgit, roughly a third of the government's total annual budget.

Less discussed — but perhaps more significant — are the social implications of the new capital for multiracial Malaysia. The vast majority of the country's civil servants are indigenous Malays and the government's plan to move several hundred thousand of them to Putrajaya will radically change the face of Kuala Lumpur, which will remain the commercial capital.

The result could be racial polarity: Kuala Lumpur dominated by ethnic Chinese and Putrajaya dominated by the Malays, who have ruled the country since independence in 1957.

At its inception, Putrajaya was billed as a "garden city," a meticulously planned urban utopia. With few exceptions, Southeast Asian cities have mushroomed over the past three decades with little planning and even less regard for the environment. Putrajaya was meant to be a radical shift from that legacy. Roads, the most modern telephone infrastructure and sewage systems were planned alongside the buildings they would serve.

Details of the city were planned down to what residents' front yards would look like. Officials decreed that neighbors would not be allowed to put up fences between their properties nor would they be allowed to install television antennas on their roofs (fiber optic connections in every house will eliminate any need for unsightly antennas).

This neat and organized city was to be Prime Minister Mahathir's crowning achievement, a legacy after 18 years in power. The very location of the new city holds significance for Mr. Mahathir. It was he who helped transform Malaysia from a country reliant on commodities — palm oil, rubber and tin — to a country with one of Asia's most diversified and dynamic economies.

The prime minister also inaugurated a long list of mega-projects: among them an international airport for Kuala Lumpur and the world's tallest buildings, the Petronas Towers.

But mega-project is a dirty term in Malaysia now, tarnished by government critics who say Malaysia can ill afford such grandiose things during these hard economic times.

As the crisis unfolded 18 months ago, the government canceled plans for regional airports, highways and a $5 billion hydroelectric dam.

Putrajaya is the mega-project that got away — albeit quietly. Wary of providing ammunition for government critics, the government has kept details of the project under wraps.

"Try getting black and white information on Putrajaya," said an adviser to one of Malaysia's top politicians. "You might find some glossy brochures. But that's it."

Indeed, with the exception of a political squabble over the cost of the prime minister's new residence, Putrajaya — Malaysia's biggest construction project by far — has stayed out of the headlines in the past year.

"There is so little news," said Khoo Kay Kim, a Malaysian historian and authority on the early development of Kuala Lumpur. "People don't know much about it."

Although the government has succeeded in muting controversy over the project, Putrajaya's future is all but certain. It remains to be seen whether civil servants who live in and around Kuala Lumpur will want to sell their houses and move to the new city. Moving every ministry to Putrajaya could also prove very costly for a government struggling to steer its economy toward economic recovery.

"I don't think we're about to see a whole scale movement of government," said Jomo K.S., a professor of economics at the University of Malaya. "A lot will depend on general economic conditions and the survival of Mahathir himself as the head of government."

Foreign missions, for one, appear very reluctant to move. Many countries have recently refurbished their embassies in Kuala Lumpur and are loath to give up such prime real estate. A move to Putrajaya could also complicate ordinary things like visa services.

"I haven't heard of a single embassy that has talked about making a move there," said a Western diplomat who consults frequently with colleagues from other embassies. "For many countries one of the main reasons to have a presence in Kuala Lumpur is commercial relations, and that requires being in Kuala Lumpur."

But all this uncertainty obscures one central fact: construction of Putrajaya has continued throughout what was the most severe economic crisis that Malaysia has ever seen — not to mention anti-government street demonstrations and overt political dogfights.

Buildings that two years ago did not exist in Putrajaya are today almost ready to receive the first contingent of civil servants.

The tenacity that Mr. Mahathir has shown in pushing through such projects as a new Formula One racing circuit, a giant sports stadium and a highway that spans the entire length of peninsular Malaysia bodes well for the continuation of the project.

"I don't think it's going to be a white elephant in the way some of these more ill-considered capitals have become," said Mr. Jomo, the economics professor, referring to a list of government-led urban projects around the world that have flopped.

Others are less certain.

"I'm not sure whether such projects will continue once a new regime comes to power," said the government adviser. "But then, what do we do with it?"

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