FEB 17 — Raja Abdul Aziz Raja Adnan. Malaysians, please remember this name. This is the director-general of the Atomic Energy Licensing Board (AELB) who very flippantly told us yesterday that if anything goes awry with the Lynas plant in Gebeng, the AELB will look for the engineer who signed off the project as safe and hold him responsible.

This man is not alarmed that a world-renowned Dutch company refused to allow its products into the Lynas plant because it was not convinced of the safety of the storage facilities. He sounds like a spokesman for Lynas and not a man who can look after the interests of Malaysians.

Malaysia is a country known for its third-world maintenance culture and corner-cutting management systems, and yet Raja Abdul Aziz talks as if he were talking about a shopping mall being built in Gebeng.

Can he name the engineers who signed off on the Bukit Merah plant, the stadium in Gong Badak, Highland Towers, the firecracker factory in Sungai Buloh?

Is he able to let us know if those who lost their loved ones found any solace because an engineer was fined for shoddy work?

It is so infuriating how blasé the AELB is. A temporary operating licence has been given to a company that has yet to provide a detailed plan on how it is going to dispose of this toxic waste. FYI: Australian laws do not allow this waste to be shipped back to the country.

It does look like the AELB and the government is forcing Malaysians to make a choice at the ballot box.

* Sam Peh reads The Malaysian Insider.

* This is the personal opinion of the writer or publication. The Malaysian Insider does not endorse the view unless specified.