A I S E H M A N . O R G

i hate to say it but this sounds like the "rakyat has no right to complain/i know what's best" attitude so typical of our "public servants".

Maybe should get MP Wee Ka Siong who has a PhD in Transportation Planning to head a study and plan an integrated system linking the expressways, trunk roads, inner city bus and LRT systems before spending any of that money.

I am of the opinion that rail should be the backbone of the country's inter city transportation supported by road systems. People movers consisting LRT and inner ring roads should also be integrated properly to minimise duplication and maximise efficiency.

The most important condideration should be cost effectiveness and business viability while political expediency should be eliminated, otherwise we can definitely kiss goodbye to the RM4b.

It is always all talk, talk, talk, talk. Talk about making things better for us all, the rakyat! Look, even simple stuff like getting the pot holes right cannot even be done, better the transportation?! Crap talk. Guess those vultures would have known their share EVEN BEFORE the dough was announced!

One of the key thing that the govt should do is to forget about "privatization" of the transport network. As far as I know the best systems in the world is not run by private firms but by the govt-owned companies.

This is the mistake that the previous admin under Tun Mahatir did and it not only proved to be a major failure but set back the goal of having integrated transportation network.

Transportation systems cost billions in investments and when a private company runs that they are compelled by banks and financial backers to get a quick ROI. This will result in higher ticket cost making it unaffordable to the masses.

When it comes to companies getting the construction contracts I am not particularly worried about the ethnicity of the owners rather their capabilities. There are capable and competent bumis and non-bumi companies.

I don't believe in lowest-bid wins system having see the downside of it too often in my professional life. Often a total unknown puts in ultra low bid below cost price and later try to recoup by cutting corners.Instead we should use transparent "beauty parade" system.

Finally we need to change our mindset when using public transportation. I have seen peoples' views in the Star and the NST and obviously Malaysians are a pampered lot.

My colleague is an American and he was transferred to HK. He tells me that now he has to replace his shoes at least twice a year unlike previous (once in 2 years) because in HK he has to walk a lot to take public transportation. The same goes to our kiasu neighbours down south or even the Japs. However we Malaysians expect the bus or LRT to pass just outside the house every ten minutes.

What the govt should do is to build bigger car parks which is either cheap or free in major LRT or transportation node outside KL rather than having shuttle buses running the entire Klang Valley, empty most of the time.

Agreed Sankaran.

What I'm railing against here is the awarding of projects to private contractors and sub-contractors.

As is often practiced here, your bid, if there even was an open tender in the first place, does not neccesarily have to be the best bid for you get the contract ... if you get what I mean.

And I emphasise "best bid", not lowest bid.

If a tender is open and transparent, you will get pretty strong bids from highly-competent people to choose from.

But if you already have "pre-qualifying" criteria in mind, such as it should be a Bumi company etc etc, then of course the chances of you awarding the contract to the bid that would best serve the public's interest are much lower.

Aisehman

Agreed.

I am worried about it as well. The problem is that our ex-PM (Tun MM) has started the practice of using the construction industry as the channel to reward political loyalty. This of course now has been cascaded down to the state level. Many people actually join UMNO not to serve people but to enrich themselves finacially. That's why the reason why the competition for posts like divisional chief is so fierce in UMNO election as it is virtually a passport to riches. Of course we can argue that this is practiced even in more developed countries (like in the US, Singapore, etc) but in a more discreet way. But the difference is in Malaysia this practice is far more prevalent and almost a way of life. But by far the biggest difference and problem is that most of the people who get the contracts are incompetents and will "outsource" it to others.

It is going to be tough for the Pak Lah to change this as it will be highly unpopular among the UMNO chieftains.