I thank Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department Nancy Shukri’s for explaining the rationale to carve out public transport to fall under the purview of the Prime Minister “in order to allow the Transport Ministry to focus on the already broad areas of aviation, sea transport and private road vehicles.”
By making a distinction between public and private transport, land transport vs air and sea transport, Liow Tiong Lai can only function as the Minister for Transport by Air, Sea, and Private Vehicles only. Whereas all matters related to public transport come under the watch of the already burdened Prime Minister who is also Finance Minister, and has to “outsource” it to the Prime Minister’s Department.
Carving out one type of transport from another is a false distinction and does not make sense operationally. Not only is it more cumbersome, it loses the natural synergy and seamless logic of planning under-one-roof, if it were to be handled by the same Ministry.
How effective is it to create an extra layer of bureaucracy, where it is SPAD, instead of the Transport Minister, who oversees drafting of laws to regulate e-hailing services (Uber/Grab), but enforcement of road safety regulations falls under the purview of the Road Transport Department, under the Transport Ministry.
Furthermore, the Ministry of Transport does not have a representative on SPAD. The members of the commission comprise of:
- Tan Sri Isa Samad – Acting Chairman
- Datuk Wan Ahmad Shihab Ismail – PMO
- Dato’ Siow Kim Lun – Corporate figure
- Prof Dr Ahmad Farhan – Academician/USM
- Datuk Himmat Singh – Former SecGen for Works Ministry and Plantation Ministry
- Datin Paduka Dr Dahlia binti Rosly – former Director General, Town and Country Planning Department
- Dato Asri bin Hamidon – formerly of the Ministry Of Finance
- Azharuddin Mat Sah – ex officio, CEO of SPAD
Hence, the Transport Minister is technically not able to influence the decisions of SPAD but is bound by them. Who is the final authority on matters related to public transportation, then, if not the Transport Minister?
Is this the reason for Liow’s silence when pressed by my colleagues to explain the reasons why the RM55 billion East Coast Rail which passes through this constituency Bentong, is a single track rail? Has Liow been misled by SPAD or is he kept in the dark?
There are other examples where the two entities do not work seamlessly, such as the conflicting statements made by the two ministers on Dego Ride.
I have stated before that cannibalizing the transport minister’s portfolio in this manner will only result in inefficiency and oversights, which will not benefit millions of working class Malaysians who rely on public transportation daily.
Malaysians deserve a full-time Transport Minister who is able to oversee all matters pertaining to the industry, instead of having a chunk of his portfolio carved out to be handled by the already bloated PMD.