MGG Pillai Commentary View

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From the worst of the best to the best of the worst

Once, and not too long ago, we could depend on our public services. The buses not only were clean and well maintained, but ran on time. The postal service was so good that when mail is lost, it usually was for what it could not avoid. We knew where the bus stations are. Not any more, as I found out the other day. All buses from Singapore, and indeed other destinations, do not arrive at the same bus station; they are dispersed all over Kuala Lumpur. One does not know where a bus will land until we know which bus company we are on. And that we know only when we buy the ticket. Whom I expected had to arrive in Kuala Lumpur, call me where they were, before I could fetch them. Dato' Seri Abdul Kadir, the culture and tourism minister, should spend more time looking into our appalling traffic system than in holding exhibitions and festivals.

The civil service was on its toes, every helpful to the concerns of the citizen. The police could be trusted not to break into your house when you told them you were going away on leave for long periods. The citizen was happy he was not subjected to unnecessary extractions from corrupt public servants. But all this is now a relic of the past. Today, what is promised is often a mirage. Malaysians do not complain as they should, so the government smugly goes about as if nothing ever goes wrong. The newspapers would not raise the problems, especially if it puts the government in a bad light.

The Star made an arrangement with Post Malaysia to provide special post cards for a contest it had to mark its 25th year as a newspaper. Those entering the contest had to buy a postcard. The Brickfields and a few post offices further afield ran out of cards or did not get them even after a few days. They had run out, and that was that. No telephoning for more cards or other attempts to ensure these cards would be available when some one asked for them. So what the Star started out with good intention is nullified by Pos Malaysia in an exercise which would bring it money from the sale of the postcards. But Pos Malaysia is not alone. I was at KL Sentral to buy a RM50 ticket from Putra LRT; I could not; there were out of stock. So was the RM30 ticket. When would they be available? The counter girl did not know. You go to take the train. There are two clocks to the signage on both sides of the track, two facing one way and two the other. All four showed different times, only one approximating to the time on my watch. How much confidence can one travelling in this driverless train if something as basic can go wrong?

Kuala Lumpur's minibuses, which provides a better service than the monopolistic and allegedly integrated transport system they replaced, were banned because, the government said, they were an eyesore, drove too fast to put passengers at risk, and were, by and large, bone-shakers. The spanking new buses they replaced, after half a dozen years, are in worse shape. No one is bothered that the Indra Kota buses which charged a premium because they were all air conditioned is comfortable only to those who likes to be in hot ovens. The air conditioning does not work, the windows are glued and therefore cannot be opened for hot humid air to flow in, the seats are torn and in bad shape. The two rapid rail transit systems are in debt for billions, and so the road transport system. All the promises of the past are forgotten, and no one cares if Malaysia has a traffic system others would drool on. The buses do not follow to a schedule, often are late. The minibuses at least were regular, and since they were owned individually, there was an incentive to provide a good and regular service.

We have a spanking new check-in counter for travellers flying through KLIA. But it is only for MAS flights. Even then some luggage could be checked at the airport. Those on other flights get no concession. That is not what we were told. We could check our luggage at KL Sentral, no matter which airline we travelled in, and collect them in Los Angeles or Tokyo or wherever you were headed to. But travelling by MAS is a hassle: you do it a favour by travelling on it. A friend who travelled to Hong Kong last week for an urgent meeting could not return the same day because his MAS ticket could not be endorsed to a CPA flight leaving then because the MAS office was closed. So he stayed the night. But he could not take the CPA flight leaving at 0800 nor at 1100 because the MAS officer decided she would come in at her convenience just before the second flight was due to leave. When he finally boarded the flight in the early afternoon, the counter clerk asked him why he did not take the early flights! Since it was a code-sharing flight, it was a CX plane that carried an MH flight number as well.

And the ripoffs. I shall name only one. A business man going to Chennai asked for international roaming for his handphone. Maxis asked him for a RM1,000 deposit. When asked why, he was told he was going to the "hot" countries -- India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh. This is a ripoff. Because there is heavy telephone traffice between these countries and Malaysia, Maxis wants to cash in on it, and collect these huge deposits. It blames the telecommunication systems there for this deposit. It did not make sense. But, rather than speak to a stone wall, which is what Maxis customer relations officers are when you have a genuine query or need an explanation, he decided to buy a pre-paid cell phone card in Chennai when he landed and make his calls through that. Maxis is about to be listed at a maximum of RM4.80, and there seems to be doubts about how well it would fare at this forthcoming initial public offering. The foreign institutional buyers think the price, which is about 50 sen more than the local price, and stay away. Staff are pressganged to take up their allotment in three days. I have received no less than five messages about this wonderful investment that is Maxis. Thanks, but no thanks.

If you were to buy a secondhand motorcar it takes at least two weeks, often longer, to transfer ownership in the Road Transport Department's computerised system; when this was done manually, it took at most two days. I can name more examples of this presumption that people are there to be cannon fodder to the greed and inefficiencies of those in power. We were once the worst of the best, a nation on the upward march to the industrialised nations of the world, and much admired for that. Then we lost our way and our soul. Today, we are the best of the worst of nations. It is no credit to us that we are where we are. Service is not what we could, indeed should, expect. Ask an information counter what we need to know and often enough whoever is in charge has no clue to what you are talking about. It does not matter if you are in a shopping mall or a government counter.

The Prime Minister and his cabinet cannot force its writ on those under them, and so prove their impotence with fatuous comments and unjustifiable statement of intent and policy. Meanwhile, almost nothing works as it should. We have elaborate functions, festivals, and celebrations for anything that could be turned into one. The idea that we could get what he want without working for it. All this is a sure sign that we are dislodged from the outer edges of the best of what the world can offer and firmly ensconced amongst the best of the worst, and sinking deeper into a morass for which a reverse is, in present circumstances, all but impossible.

M.G.G. Pillai
pillai@mgg.pc.my