Media statement by Liew Chin Tong in Kuala Lumpur on Tuesday, 2^nd August 2011:

Reform of taxis, public transport is political

Land Public Transport Commission (SPAD) Chairman Tan Sri Syed Hamid Albar was reported as saying that public transport should be depoliticised, as "it is not for the opposition to determine that public transportation is efficient (or otherwise)."

I disagree. Public transport (or the lack of it) should be at the top of our political agenda.

In the decades to come, the world will be confronted with the following challenges, namely, rising energy cost, carbon emission and global warming, a bigger population to share a diminishing pool of natural resources. Public transport will be the most important policy tool to overcome those challenges.

A case in point is the reform of taxi services. In a study which was made available to SPAD and myself, it was shown that Kuala Lumpur has a taxi-to-population ratio of 16.5 taxis per thousand population while most other advance cities have an average of 2 taxi per thousand people.

Yet taxi services are not up to the international benchmark while taxi drivers suffer from low income. Big corporations are given permits in the thousands while genuine drivers are forced to rent from these well-connected firms.

I strongly believe that political will is needed to change this. Without policy intervention by the state, the public transportation sector - left to its own devices - will not be transformed to fulfill both the public's needs and help ordinary taxi drivers earn reasonable income. The government should intervene to facilitate better solutions for public transportation, and that is what a Pakatan Rakyat government intends to do when it is in power.

* Liew Chin Tong, DAP International Secretary & MP for Bukit Bendera