Rosy outlook: Pannir at the Legoland concourse. He loves the development in Nusajaya-Iskandar which he says is far-sighted and well-planned.

Billions of ringgit in investments have been pouring into Johor of late, grabbing news headlines. As the state transforms, what are the people saying?

FRIENDS since they were teenagers, Nur Hidayah Baharuddin, 29, and Mohd Firdaus Mustafa, 30, often discuss issues of concern such as the menace of the Mat Rempit in Batu Pahat.

“They pull all sorts of dangerous stunts on the roads. It is scary,” says Firdaus, who one night witnessed two of them deliberately ramming into each other and both ending up dead.

Hidayah claims the Mat Rempit are also Mat Ragut, snatching bags and whatever else they can as they ride in a pack and zoom off.

“I don’t think their parents even know what they are up to. The only ‘cure’ for them is to fall off their bikes and get run over,” she says, a mite viciously.

With the general election coming, Firdaus is “praying for Johor to be safe” while Hidayah is “open for change”.

But both are not registered voters!

“I did try. Honest. I approached Umno Youth in my kawasan six months ago to register as a voter but they told me I was too late and would have to wait for their next registration exercise,” explains Firdaus.

Hidayah says she just didn’t find the time.

“We’ll register, for sure, for the next one,” she promises.

Johor is one state that has been booming and blossoming especially down south with Nusajaya, Kota Iskandar, Legoland, Hello Kitty, the Johor Premium Outlets (JPO) and numerous new highways that have come up.

(Yes, I say this with some natural bias because I am born and bred in Johor, a state I love to death. I even made sure I got a Johor number plate for my car although I bought it in Kuala Lumpur.)

But development means different things to different people.

Nasrullah: ‘My friends, people of my generation (Gen X), myself and the older folks will still vote Umno in Johor.’

For Zali Kundor, 30, of Gelang Patah, it stresses him out each time he passes Legoland.

His son keeps bugging him to take him there but on his lorry driver’s pay, he can’t afford the RM140 ticket for an adult and RM110 for a child.

“But what do you say to a six-year-old when he keeps saying ‘Ayah, Ayah Legoland’?

“So when I am with him, I try to pass it only at night so that when he spots it and wants to go in, I tell him it’s closed,” says Zali, who lives only 10 minutes away from the newly opened theme park with its rides, activities and attraction for children.

The thought of forking out such a huge amount on a day ticket to Legoland is inconceivable to Zali as that money, he says, can be better used to buy rice and essential goods for the house.

Zali, the son of a Felcra settler, has been waiting years to be paid the full compensation for four acres of land his family had to give up to make way for development.

In the 1980s, Gelang Patah, which is 25km from Johor Baru, had lots of rubber trees, a dead end road and very few cars. But over the last 10 years, it has totally transformed.

There are now big housing estates, rows of shops, factories, budget hotels with WiFi, a bank, post office, a 7-11 convenience store, ATMs, food stalls, restaurants, a 24-hour mamak restaurant, roads leading everywhere, and plenty of cars.

It takes only 15 minutes to get to Singapore using the second link expressway.

Nusajaya is just 6km away, Kota Iskandar, Johor’s new state-of-the-art administrative centre, the pretty Puteri Harbour complete with a marina and five-star hotel a teeny-weeny bit further, while the Tanjung Pelepas port is nearby and JPO a 20-minute drive.

But what this means to Zali and his friends having teh tarik at the mamak shop is that prices have shot up.

“We used to be able to buy houses for RM60,000 to RM80,000 but not any more. Low-cost houses are taken up so quickly and what’s left are houses that cost RM200,000 to RM300,000.

“As a lorry driver, how can I afford that?” asks Zali, a tad bitterly.

He resents that Singaporeans with their “big” Singaporean dollars are snapping up all the choice landed property, paying half a million upwards for it.

Homing in: Many Malaysians from other states who work in Singapore have now come to live in Gelang Patah because of its proximity to Singapore.

Zali used to pay RM100 to rent a modest two-room house but the rent has shot up to RM350.

Many Malaysians from other states who work in Singapore have now come to live in Gelang Patah because of its proximity to Singapore, spiking rental prices.

Factories have sprung up in Gelang Patah, and with them are many foreign workers who are willing to work for lower wages.

Zali’s friend, Remy, from the same kampung, works in a factory. He says he does “crazy overtime” to get RM2,000 a month and pushes himself to the brink if he’s desperate for RM3,000.

“Before, we could get by with RM1,000 but food prices, rent, and the cost of living have all gone up. It’s hard to survive here with less than RM2,000,” says Remy, who is waiting for the RM900 minimum wage to be implemented at his factory.

Their friend, Azwan Mat Khalid, 27, who is also a lorry driver says they meet at the mamak shop whenever they can to discuss ideas on how to get more money.

After hearing Zali and his friends’ stories, I head over to Iskandar, the Puteri Harbour, Educity, JPO and Legoland. And there I meet some Johoreans who feel the development is a blessing.

At the Legoland concourse (I had only an hour to spare and didn’t want to pay RM140 to enter so I hung around the entrance), Pannir Selvam is approaching visitors, offering cheaper online tickets at RM100 each.

Pannir, 51, only has sky-high praises for the development in Johor.

“We are working smart. Singa­poreans don’t know where to park their money so the ultimate reason Johor is doing this is to attract their dollars here. About 70% of the landed property and bungalows in this area are being bought by Singaporeans,” he says.

He believes Educity with all the international universities and facilities is going to attract “everyone around the world to come and study here”.

Iskandar-Nusajaya, he says, is extremely well planned, taking into account development 10, 20, 30 years down the line.

“I love it here. The roads are great. There are no traffic jams because it’s all planned way ahead. There are phase-to-phase projects which are never-ending, so this place is going to just keep developing and evolving,” he says, with apparent pride.

Pannir is not originally from the area. He hails from Masai, which is 45km away, for work.

He found the place, the pace, congestion-free roads and less stressful lifestyle suited him, so he bought an apartment for RM145,000 and moved his family here a year ago. Today his apartment’s market price is RM260,000.

“I guarantee it will be worth RM300,000 by the end of the year,” he says, delighted that he is benefiting.

High prices are not something new for Johoreans, points out Nasrullah Makmon, who also does business at the Legoland concourse.

“Singaporeans with their higher purchasing power have always been pushing prices up in Johor and we are used to it,” he says nonchalantly.

On the political front, 37-year-old Nasrullah likes to keep tabs on what is going on in the state.

He is an Umno supporter but he confesses that he likes the push Pakatan Rakyat is making in the state.

“Both sides are working tirelessly to win our support. So we benefit from both sides,” he says.

He views Johor as still an “Umno fortress”. “I say this because my friends, people of my generation (Gen X), myself and the older folks will still vote Umno in Johor.”

But the younger generation, he reckons, are the wild card. “They are more liberal, willing to take risks and vote for change.”

(In the last election, Pakatan Rakyat won six out of 56 state seats in Johor and took one out of 26 parliamentary seats.)

At a popular warung in Kempas in the Pulai constituency, Nur Muslimah Radol, who backs Umno, worries.

She sees some Barisan-held seats in the state shaky.

And personally, she has mixed feelings about the RM100 aid given to primary and secondary school students and the RM500 BR1M (1Malaysian People’s Aid) to households earning less than RM3,000 and RM250 to single people aged above 21 who earn less than RM2,000.

“Parents will somehow find a way to buy school uniforms and books and the essentials for school. That RM100 and RM500 will just get spent so quickly.”

So she would have preferred the government to use that money to buy more computers for schools, build more IT labs or set up another foundation for a good cause because, she feels, that would have long-term benefits and more impact.

But there are those like Zali and friends who feel a bit of relief from the RM500 cash handout.

And then there are those who question how the assessment is done to deem if someone is eligible for BR1M.

Leong (not his real name) is sore as he was rejected because of the car he drives.

“I drive a Volvo but it is a 16-year-old car and worth only RM6,000! On the road, I’d lose to even a Kancil,” says the 57-year-old retiree.

He has no monthly income now that he has retired but he has his EPF savings.

“But that is my savings, my effort. Over the years, I put in little by little into the EPF and it has grown to a sizeable amount with time. But that shouldn’t be grounds to reject me for BR1M,” says Leong, who never married.

It pains him that people with kids living in four-storey homes and driving new big cars had jammed up the road in his area last year to pick up their share of “free money”.

“I applied once and didn’t get it. I didn’t apply for the second round (BR1M 2.0 will be distributed next month). It’s too embarrassing. And I am not a beggar,” he stresses.

In Batu Pahat, banker Raymond Lee, 52, is looking at quality of life and a balance between career and family life.

He is concerned that wages are going up by only 5% while the cost of living is rising by 10%. But that is not all.

Lee studied in a Chinese school and speaks English fluently because during his time, secondary education was all in English.

It bothers him that his two children who also studied in a Chinese school and are now in Form 3 and Form 5 are tongue-tied when it comes to speaking English.

“I admit I am also to blame because I lack the patience to speak to them in English as they find it hard to understand.

“But why leave it to the parents? Shouldn’t our education system be able to provide students with a good grasp of English?”

If the standard at national schools is so good, why are the well-off, including politicians, sending their children to international schools where the medium of instruction is English, he asks. He says he will vote the opposition.

But 40-year-old Bal Raj is “101% sure” that Barisan will win the state because “you can’t touch Umno in Johor”. But he has his share of woes.

He was awarded a five-year plumbing and sewage contract worth RM20,000 a month for a semi-government body. Two-and-a half years later, they terminated it because he is a non-bumiputra, saying the contract was for bumiputras only. He is suing.

“I give up. I am not going to work with the government any more,” says Bal Raj who has since started his own tour company.

His father was a labourer and Bal Raj came up the hard way to be a “boss”. All he wants is a better life for him and his children.

His friend George has travelled to Europe but finds Malaysia “one of the best places to live”.

What eats at him, though, is how the system categorises the different races into Malays, Chinese and Indian.

“We are all Malaysians. There is no need for such differentiation,” he says.

Their friend Murali wants to do away with Chinese and Tamil schools because he thinks it is a waste of resources, and “divides cultures” and students.

And like a lot of Johoreans who have a love-hate relationship with Singapore, Murali says, he “doesn’t like Singapore but likes the way they pay us” – meaning the higher salaries based on merit.

Most Johoreans who work in Singapore prefer to use the causeway to get in rather than the second link because the toll for the latter is very high (over five times more return), resulting in massive jams every day at the Johor-Singapore causeway.

And while Singapore imposes a levy of S$20 (RM50) on each non-Singapore registered car entering the republic on weekdays during office hours, Malaysia doesn’t do the same to Singapore cars.

Any other car – be it Malaysian, Singapore-registered or some foreign car – entering Malaysia through the causeway pays a toll of only RM2.90.

Murali believes there is revenue here just waiting to be tapped for Malaysia – by charging non-Malaysian (i.e. Singapore) cars a higher toll to get into Johor using the causeway.

“They come in and buy cheaper petrol, cigarettes and groceries. Why should they pay the same toll rate as us?” he asks.

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