LETTER | The public transport system that was said to have “third class maintenance” is nothing new but it is time for the present government under Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim to make the necessary changes to bring it to the next level.

Several years ago, I was informed by a friend who works with a rail service that when they did a complete overhaul of the system, the engineers were shocked to see the system being in shambles.

What shocked my friend is that, even though things were already falling apart, the trains were still running. Doesn’t this sound familiar to us?

In fact, this mindset is pervasive throughout the entire system of government. Decades ago, former prime minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad lambasted the civil servants for their third-class maintenance culture too.

Yet, nothing has improved. Recently, I highlighted to my municipality that the blue paint on many of its signage posts in housing estates has faded away.

One particular signage has already shown signs of rust, yet the response from the council staff was to wait for the road expansion next year before they repaint the signage.

In my opinion, they are waiting for the next opportunity to change to a new signage post instead of maintaining the old one.

Who is to blame?

Therefore, it is no surprise that the LRT, KTM Komuter and even the monorail systems continue to rot under poor maintenance.

From being a strong proponent of public transport, these days, I also avoid using the trains. In the past, after I was introduced to a last-mile shuttle service, I used KTM Komuter daily.

It is not because they do not have enough passengers during peak hours. Instead, people especially right at the top of the hierarchy have their own agenda.

Essentially, they are not interested in resolving public complaints about delays and breakdowns.

It does not take much effort to guess what is on their mind most of the time. If anything gets approved, the question is always the same: “What is there for me?”

This applies to nearly every senior level in both government and private sector.

Unless Anwar first revamps the MACC and purges out the corrupt ones within the system, there will always be cases that are classified as “no further action”.

If he cares to read Barry Wain’s book, “Malaysian Maverick: Mahathir Mohamad in Turbulent Times,” Anwar should be fully aware by now, why senior civil servants who are also senior Umno members are a clear conflict of interest case.

As a result, the culture of corruption continues, which explains why contractors that are incompetent to do the job get the contracts. Both the competent contractors and government servants get demoralised as a result.

Money politics was an issue in the 1990s, and it is getting even worse now. We have often heard millions being offered for MPs to hop to another party, causing the collapse of an entire government which clearly had the people’s mandate.

Umno, too, has suffered at the hands of party hoppers. This is why the anti-hopping law was introduced, but it needs to be further tightened to prevent another collapse of an elected government.

Until the system is fixed, I have little hope for Transport Minister Anthony Loke to be able to do anything significant to turn around the entire public transport system.

The views expressed here are those of the author/contributor and do not necessarily represent the views of Malaysiakini.