MP SPEAKS In a busy-bulldozing-of-bills' week, the Malaysian government managed to get legislative approval allowing for the setup of Malaysia’s Aviation Commission.

The bill, 95 pages in total, saw less than three hours of debate yet would cost the Malaysian taxpayer a total of RM90 million as initial seed funding.

This amount is all the more alarming when contrasted with the six thousand current MAS employees who will face the sack under the approved restructuring plan of the said company.

Granted, all quarters agree with the need to salvage MAS’ financial losses - but the government’s move to spend through various new agencies and commissions without much detailing on its effectiveness and fruitful impact smacks of extreme irresponsibility.

Malaysia’s aviation history has been badly marked by the many tragedies affecting MAS:

• lost MAS plane MH370, shot-down MAS plane MH17;

incompetence of the Department of Civil Aviation Malaysia (DCA):

direct tender choosing of controversial radar system software provider, Selex Systemi Integrati and radar failure incident in Subang terminal of 2012; and

Malaysia Airport Holding Berhad (MAHB)’s lack of accountability concerns for the long standing issues affecting KLIA2’s runway and development (ICAO audit barely cleared airport for use: it met minimum requirements for safety to start operations as scheduled but with clear cut need for consistent redress and preventive maintenance).

As such, the government must immediately address concerns of ensuring the independence of the commission by selecting an executive chairman who is a committed professional with sufficient geo-technical background - lest we end up with another newly built runway with cracks before the six months completion time is up - like the KLIA2. No personalities previously involved with MAHB or the DCA or the Ministry of Transport should be helming the commission.

Another wormhole of conflicts

The commission must report to Parliament for scrutiny and public safety; not the prime minister who is already tainted from his links to 1MDB as chairman to its board of advisors.

Furthermore, previous appointments by the Prime Minister's Office has proven to only further centralise responsibility and escape accountability.

One only needs to relook the Malindo Airline launch by the prime minister on the 12th of September 2012 - a staggering five months prior to DCA’s awarding of aviation license to the said airline which only took place on the 28th February 2013.

Clearly, a commission board controlled by and reports to the prime minister opens up another wormhole of conflicting interests, and is open to abuse.

It is time the Malaysian government takes stock at what is at stake and immediately move to ensure that the newly created Aviation Commission lives up to expectations.

Timely audit disclosure

As part of this week’s bill to allow for the setup of Malaysia’s Aviation Commission,  the government has proposed to appoint an Internal Auditor as part of the commission. However, the proposed role for the appointed auditor is left vague.

At the moment we are being audited constantly using international standards/monitoring body. For example the DCA are being audited too by the ICAO.

I think what is more important is to make this yearly audit visible for public viewing. The delays in revealing the audit findings can be detrimental towards patching up weakness and loopholes in our aviation safety.

I myself had to wait for three years, across three different ministers heading the Transport Ministry before I could get my hands on the report on power outage at the air traffic control centre on 13 September 2012 - detailing reasons to why our airspace went blind for nearly two hours - leading authorities to:

• surrender air authority to a foreign nation - Singapore - which provided us radio communications services to 3 movements, southbound for Singapore and beyond

delay affecting 5 flights both domestic and international carriers'.

forced to utilise non radar control procedures: where time used to separate planes can be up to 10 minutes (80Nm/145km) instead of the normal radar control of 5 Nautical Miles (9 km).

MH370 exposed massive failure

As the MH370 incident has shown us, there are still many weaknesses in Malaysia’s aviation safety. While commenting on the interim report on the case, CNN news anchor Richard Quest, has said that the biggest scandal in the MH370 case is the failure of the air traffic controllers in South East Asia including Malaysia to take action even though the radars has managed to pick up strange movements by the plane in the hours prior to the search and rescue is launched.

It is imperative that Malaysia begins to disclose these audit reports to the stakeholders including to the members of the public, as this would open up opportunities for the stakeholders to suggest ways and new technologies that is available to improve aviation safety.

As such, I demand the government to reveal audit findings by local and international bodies in a transparent and timely manner. Improvements would inch along if government keeps the “government-knows-best” stance.  

For this, I urge the government to set up a parliamentary select committee on Civil Aviation Safety and Security. In dealing with safety issues, the public deserves to know that the government is working at its best to ensure the public’s lives are of the utmost importance.

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NURUL IZZAH ANWAR is Lembah Pantai MP and PKR vice president and elections director.