"LIVE PERFORMANCE BY ALFRED HO

Why I've taken an interest in politics

Dear Readers,

Allow me first to introduce myself. I am a blind individual in my 50's and a singer, guitarist by profession. I have been in this profession for more than 20 years now and my forte is singing the old western favourites. I also sing in several chinese dialects, including spanish and several languages. I mainly do the pub circuits and perform at company and wedding functions.

For your information, the reason why I am disenchanted with the government is because I have been discriminated against in years gone by. Apart from being a singer, my other interest lies in disc jockeying and as such some years ago, I applied to RTM for such a post. Of course the powers that be at RTM were reluctant to offer me the post but after writing numerous letters, they finally gave me the job but with a hidden agenda. They only gave me the job for 6 months after which they relieved me of the post. Subsequently, I wrote several letters to the then information minister, Khalil Yaacob but my pleas for him to intervene in the matter fell on deaf ears as he decided to ignore my letters. I also approached people such as Lee Lam Thye, Lim Keng Yaik and even the very popular complaints officer of MCA, Michael Chong with the same results. All the 3 people that I mentioned gave me the cold shoulder, inspite of the fact that we are supposed to be governed by a caring government. It may interest you to learn that I even went personally to the MCA complaints bureau to seek out the assistance of Michael Chong and believe it or not he refused to entertain my complaint and he even tried to drive me out of his office saying that he was the wrong person for me to approach and that I should bring my complaints to the blind association instead. I even tried to highlight this matter with the star newspaper but as the star newspaper is a MCA publication, I was told by the news editor that my news report was not newsworthy, even after I had given my account of the events to one of the star reporters. disgusted by this, I wrote several letters to certain top MCA officials such as Ong Ka Ting but to my dismay they chose to ignore my letters till this very day. I even had my letters to these inconsiderate officials published over Malaysiakini. Subsequently, Michael Chong tried to defend himself over Malaysiakini but I think that he failed miserably. Believe it or not , I even wrote to no less than the prime minister himself for his assistance but until today I have yet to get a reply from him. To ensure that the PM got my letter, I purposely attended his hari raya gathering at the PWTC where I handed the letter to him personally. As such he cannot deny not having received my letter for assistance. I even rang to speak to his political secretary, Vincent Lim but as expected, he was just as unhelpful. As a result of these problems that I have encountered, I have decided to take a great interest in politics.

You know, if given the opportunity I would like very much to campaign for the opposition as I strongly feel that the misdeeds of this very uncaring government should be exposed

Purchase Of Albums and Performing At Functions

Sep 19, 2007