Look who's back, if it isn’t Anthony Loke and he’s on Track.
He may look mean but he means business. The straight-talking man, Loke Siew Fook is back as the Minister for Transportation and moving people will be his priority once again. Carrying a serious face he also takes his job as serious business and proved it during his last term as a Minister. The KTM workers have requested the PM that Loke be reinstated as Transport Minister.
As the Minister in charge he has begun his new job with the burden to quickly fix the huge problem that has partially paralysed the city’s transportation network which is the Kelana Jaya LRT line. At a press conference recently he warned commuters about the disruptions in the coming months all the way till the third quarter of 2023 and apologised for the inconveniences caused by the instability of the system. Going into details of the situation which was something always kept away from the Rakyat, he explained that only 38 of the 56 LRT trains were operable with the rest under repairs. This was why the frequency of the flow was scaled up to 5 minutes instead of the usual 3 minutes. The operator Prasarana will add a further 19 trains which will be delivered by August 2023. Anthony Loke made a surprise check by taking a ride on the LRT train during rush hour and having found it dissatisfactory he urged the operator to speed up the repairs on the 18 grounded trains. An independent body will be conducting an investigation on the five-day closure of 16 LRT stations last month.
Excuses, Excuses and more Excuses poured out to the public.
Mohd Azharuddin bin Mat Sah was appointed as President & Group Chief Executive Officer of Prasarana Malaysia Berhad on July 15th, 2021. What was he doing about contingency plans to avoid disasters and disruptions such as this?
He quoted that the malfunction was a serious problem and the manufacturer from Canada was summoned to rectify and identify solutions. It seems that even after operating for such a long time they are unable to contain anything out of the ordinary. Prasarana had the option of operating the trains manually but was not confident enough to do so. After having operated the LRT for decades, why did the operator have no confidence in operating the system manually? In washing his hands off statement, he also added, “The Kelana Jaya LRT line has been operating for nearly 25 years. It is an ageing system and all its parts need replacements,” It seems that the new Government may need to cough out billions to upgrade transportation which is not great news but a good lesson to not employ people who are irresponsible and incapable of leading such sensitive entities (Malaysian Reserve).
Looking East policy made Malaysian Transportation go South
In 1982, Malaysians were told by a recalcitrant PM at that time, to look east, particularly at Japan because things went sour between him and the west (MOFA). At the time even though it was good advice to look at Japan which was the giant of Asia but Dr Mahathir was either myopic or too selfish to emulate Japan’s impeccable transportation network. He instead concentrated on his pet projects without any consideration for the Rakyat. He glorified himself by building highways, mega construction projects like the KLIA, The Petronas twin towers and his favourite being the national car which was the advent of the Saga called the PROTON. He never had any interest in the fundamentals of the people at heart but only strived to become a legend which was something that kept the poor poor and made them slaves to his system. Due to no other alternatives to cheaper or quicker transportation other than the motorcycle, the Rakyat had resorted to becoming Dr Mahathir's National car owners purchased on very low installments but on incredibly long tenures. Malaysians were practically owned by the banks and because of this the rate of bankruptcy also rose and many have fallen because it had become a culture even to till this day. People wanted to own things they could not afford and so committed themselves to a hire purchase mentality.
It is this sort of selfishness that has caused great neglect for public Transportation throughout the Nation.
‘First class systems, third class maintenance’ still rings true, says Loke. FMT
“We have the best public transport facilities. Since the time of former prime minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, we’ve been saying that we have first-class infrastructure but when it comes to maintenance, we’re still a third-world country (FMT).
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