Within 1 week of being sworn in as the Minister for Transport, Anthony Loke carried out a spot check of the LRT Kelana Jaya Line, riding on trains from 5pm to 7pm on 8 Dec 2022, to observe peak hour conditions on the rail service and he revealed that,
- 46 out of 706 escalators at various train stations were presently not functioning, while 16 lifts at different monorail stations were not in operation. On the lighting front, it was pointed out that 664 light units were faulty.
- Despite there being 56 trains available for the line, only 38 were in operation causing train frequencies to drop to once every 5 minutes instead of the supposed 3 minute.
Less than a week after he revealed his findings publicly, on 14 Dec 2022, after 3 years of waiting, the escalators at the KLCC station was finally repaired leaving commuters singing praises of the Minister’s effectiveness.
Before this, Rapid Rail Sdn Bhd, in a statement on 15 October 2022 said that they are aware of the escalator and elevator breakdowns at several train stations and repair work, based on a condition-based maintenance programme, on those escalators and lifts is expected to be completed by the end of 2022.
Rapid Rail further added that based on their records, 22 of the 362 elevator units were not functioning while 49 out of 707 escalators were out of order.
Spare parts for the elevator and escalator repairs had been ordered from the original manufacturer (OEM) in Shanghai, China with the first batch expected to arrive in Oct 2022, and 2nd batch in mid Nov 2022 and 3rd batch end of Nov 2022.
Moving forward, slightly 2 months after his appointment, the Minister announced on 10 Feb 2023 that as part of the Transport Ministry’s efforts to digitise the services of JPJ, specifically for motor vehicle licences and driving licence, Section 20 of the Road Transport Act, which mandates that motor vehicle licences must be displayed on vehicles, will no longer be in effect.
Effectively, motor vehicle licences, also known as road tax stickers (LKM), are no longer required to be displayed on privately owned vehicles by Malaysians with immediate effect.
A device carried by the JPJ enforcement officer enable them to confirm the status of the road tax and the driver’s licence.
Vehicle users, however, are also encouraged to download the MyJPJ mobile application for ease of convenience in the event they are stopped by JPJ enforcement officers.
Both course of action by the Minister deserves to be applauded.
Both were to improve services and convenience to the public.
What, however, surprises the rakyat are the speed at which both these were addressed and resolved.
Doesn’t the civil service in the Ministry of Transport checked on the working conditions and maintenance records of Rapid Rail?
Is there a breakdown of chain of command and responsibility between the Ministry and Rapid Rail?
Rapid Rail even confidently in their statement of 15 Oct 2022 confirmed that as at mid Oct 2022, 22 of the 362 elevator units were not functioning while 49 out of 707 escalators were out of order.
If Rapid Rail is operated as a commercial and for profit concern, with approximately 6% of the total escalators and elevators are out of order not for one day or one week but for months and some for years, the management of Rapid Rail would have been terminated and replaced immediately.
Or maybe the condition-based maintenance programme practiced by Rapid Rail is based on an economy of scale model where repair and replacement are carried out only when there is a sufficient number of elevator or escalators are down and needs to be repair.
If it is only 2 or 3 elevators or escalators that required repair, the costs of ordering the specific parts and engaging the workers far outweigh the benefits to the company regardless of whether the commuters are inconvenienced or not.
Or it was truly a coincidence that the appointment of a new Minister coincided with the arrival and availability of all the required spare parts for those down and out elevators and escalators?
Maintenance works are generally low technology and low budget. Hence, the margins are thin.
The actual jobs tend to get sub-contracted a few layers down the line.
When payments are delayed, there is a slack in maintenance.
Eventually, the problem accumulates.
If there is a real resolve to improve maintenance, the contracts should be awarded to companies that actually undertake the work. The middle-man should be cut out. (TEM)
The lack of maintenance and couldn’t care less attitude of the management and the people inside the Ministry of Transport obviously does not boil down to apathy or the lack of a budget.
And damage to their reputation, a great concern if Rapid Rail is operated and managed as a commercial entity, is obviously the least of their concern.
It appears that the work to design and setup the MyJPJ application and manufacture the device to be carried by the enforcement officers from JPJ has been going on even before the new Minister was appointed on 3 Dec 2022.
The apps and the devices would have been ready, not for testing, but actual use by the motor vehicle users for the Minister to announce that Section 20 of the Road Transport Act, which will no longer be in effect to take place with immediate effect.
The Minister was only appointed on 3 Dec 2022.
He must be super efficient to agree for the adoption and implementation of the MyJPJ apps and have it ready for use by the public within 2 months of his appointment.
The new Minister probably just announced the implementation of the MyJPJ app with immediate effect while the decision to develop and implement the app must have been decided and approved by his predecessor.
The Communications and Digital Minister indirectly confirmed this when he told reporters attending Lembah Pantai’s Chinese New Year open house in Taman Seri Sentosa, in Kuala Lumpur on 12 Feb 2023 that Cyber Security Malaysia (CSM) was earlier roped in to help in identifying the vulnerability of the application during the process of developing the application before it was rolled out to the public on 10 Feb 2023.
If so, why the MyJPJ was not rolled out earlier during the time of his predecessor?
What was the cause of the delay?
Or the previous Minister was waiting for Cybersecurity Malaysia to conclude their vulnerability assessment and unfortunately due to him not being reappointed to the same position post the 15th GE, he was unable to announce the decision made by him earlier?
Malaysians are used to the idiom – ada udang di sebalik batu.
Can’t blame us as the rakyat gets accustomed to all the shenanigans by the politicians in the last 30 years and this idiom has stuck in the minds of a majority of Malaysians.
Is there `udang di sebalik batu’ in the delay of the rolling out this digitization initiative by the previous goevrnment?
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