LAST weekend, Anthony Loke spoke convincingly at the unity government convention. Obviously, he is a very decisive minister.

He has made a good start to a long journey ahead as the transport minister and he seems to be heading in the right direction.

Within a few months back, he made three impressive and brave policy decisions:

i. vehicle road tax is no longer required to be displayed on the windscreen
ii. end of monopoly for Puspakom by September this year, and
iii. driving licence can be renewed for a maximum period of 10 years. 

A broken system

At the beginning of his tenure, the minister took trips on the LRT, presumably after receiving many complaints on Rapid Rail’s poor service and the tendency for trains to break down frequently.

He tries hard to rectify a broken system that is fast eroding public transport users’ confidence on many fronts.

However, LRT breakdowns are just the tip of the iceberg.

It is a manifestation of a long-standing problem that represents the poor state of public transport throughout the country, juxtaposed against the need to resolve urban traffic congestions issues.

No doubt, Dr Mahathir Mohamad’s administration ought to be blamed for his penchant for private cars rather than the use of buses or trains.

Thus Malaysia has had skewed policies for more toll highways rather than a comprehensive public transport infrastructure.

On top of that, previous government administrations did not have the will to formulate policies and strategies to encourage and to increase the usage of public transport.

The focus had been biased towards cars.

Steps on how to improve the transportation network was driven by car usage, leading to more highways, more road building, more parking spaces, better car access and cheap interest rates to purchase cars.

As a cherry on the car icing policy, it was topped up by hefty petroleum subsidies.

Inherited problems

This unity government has inherited, a myriad  of car-centric policies, which they need to undo or rigorously reform, revamp and resolve.

There are various fundamental problems associated with public transport itself, which involves many organisations: KTMB, MRT, LRT, Monorail, KLIA aero train, and airlines services, especially between the peninsula, Sabah and Sarawak.

All these entities demand many different resolutions, not only from the Transport Ministry (MOT), but more importantly, from the Finance Ministry (MOF), which owns most of these agencies.

The main problem lies in the way the previous governments structured the agencies that are responsible to manage public transport services.

The inherited organisational structure from Dr Mahathir and Najib Razak’s eras has been proven to be no longer workable in the current situation.

Dr Mahathir’s approach was based on a divide-and-rule concept, which was later copied by Najib.

Both administrations purposely limit the roles of the MOT by placing all the public transport functions under the MOF or the Prime Minister’s Department.

The big split between ownership (including its annual budgets) of the public transport agencies under MOF and the supervision placed under MOT is cause for great concern.

The results of this major split are obvious. Not only is the provision of public transport services badly fragmented, disfigured and uncoordinated. Having six different agencies in charge is complex, inefficient, inept and wasteful.

These agencies are:

i .KTMB
ii. Prasarana (LRT)
iii. MRT Corp (MRT)
iv. Malaysian Rail Link (ECRL)
v. APAD (formerly SPAD) and
vi. the residual authority of the Road Vehicles Licensing Board (now only in Sabah and Sarawak).

Structural defects

The first four agencies are all owned by MOF, while the last two small-time regulators are under MOT.

Provision for railway services have been split further between KTMB (under MOF) for train operation and Railway Assets Corporation (RAC) under MOT.

RAC owns all the stations, land and tracks, signals, power lines and is supposed to undertake maintenance too.

Another railway authority, Malaysia Rail Link (MRL) was set up specifically for the East Coast Rail Link (ECRL), also owned by MOF.

There is another body, MyHSR, which was set up for the high-speed rail to Singapore, which did not take off, also set-up under MOF.

The supervising authority for public transport is parked under Agensi Pengangkutan Awam Darat or APAD.

APAD, which used to be called Suruhanjaya Pengangkutan Awam Darat or SPAD, has been reduced to a unit under the Road Transport Department (RTD), which is also under MOT.

This is the unit which is supposed to supervise, monitor, enforce and approve all the rail services and systems in the country.

Is that possible? This is the reality users of public transport services face.

Indeed, such roles and responsibilities are a tall order for APAD to play effectively over the rail giants owned by MOF.

Unless, of course, reforms are in the pipeline. – May 18, 2023.

* Rosli Khan reads The Malaysian Insight.

* This is the opinion of the writer or publication and does not necessarily represent the views of The Malaysian Insight. Article may be edited for brevity and clarity.