OCTOBER 30 — Management consultants have a priority, fees. The consultant’s condo does not pay for itself. Nor does his or her year-end winter holiday. Airport parking can be murder.

It’s an amazing job where the factor of production is time developing presentation decks. To make sense inside a meeting room to clients.

This is what crossed my mind looking at the proud faces — civil servants representing councils — on stage two days ago as they announced Johor as the country’s first smart state. Awards were handed out, and smiles procured. Putrajaya was too busy patting too many heroes on their backs.

Somewhere behind the stage must be an army of consultants rubbing their palms in glee. “If smart state titles excite the clients, what other fascinating titles can we come up with!”

The report heralded “all 16 local authorities (in Johor) achieved at least Level 1-Smart City Early Adopter under the Malaysian Smart City rating.”

It sounded like gibberish. It made little sense to people in or out of Johor. Even to people in or out of our galaxy.

Before I upset civil servants, politicians and businesses in Johor, do relax. Smartness, or more precisely declarations of technological competency, is contagious in Malaysia and not limited to Johor.

The Housing and Local Government Deputy Minister Aiman Athirah Sabu already announced last week, that 30 local authorities across the country have earned the Malaysia Smart City Rating 2025.

Having read that, and then look out of the window to what is actual, how can we all not speculate a bunch of consultants have set up structures to aid civil servants’ self-aggrandisements?

The A to be F adds a B to the C

Check out the ministry’s smart city framework, be ready to be awed — also ready for a headache.

The Policy and Development Agenda Matrix outlines markers like NUA (UN’s non-binding New Urban Agenda) elements, SDG (Sustainable Development Goals) goals, 11MP (11 Malaysia Plan) thrusts and more letters with NPP and NUP, together a management consultant’s wet dream.

Take a deep breath.

As Dr Hannibal Lecter tells FBI Agent Starling in the fictional The Silence of the Lambs, “First principles, Clarice.”

A few steps back to examine the intention before the undertaking and titles.

Malaysia wants better living spaces. Using methods to calculate the Internet of Things (IOT), digitalisation and physical connectivity are excellent but they cannot replace the need to be honest about things.

Honesty is a very underrated virtue when it comes to governing in Malaysia.

I’m not sure whether my Kajang Town Municipality is one of the 30 excellent municipalities but as recent as yesterday, retirees living in my taman had to pay council contracted grasscutters directly, for them to do their jobs that their employer was already paid for.

Not sure whether any of the grasscutters had an app to monitor their work, or QR codes to receive payments from geriatrics, but smart with or without electronics was absent.

How does the smart city framework track that?

A bit old school but 56-page theoretical documents do not impress in the age of the AI generation.

More so when disengaged local councils uniformly do what they please without the democratic consent of their rate-payers.

They are rewarded for their anti-democratic zeal and obedience to the ministry rather than their inhabitants with awards like Level 1-Smart City Early Adopter under the Malaysian Smart City rating.

Bussing in reason, and people

Sixteen councils in Johor with enviable public transportation — which is an element, thrust, principle and a laugh in the Policy and Development Agenda Matrix.

Comprehensive as in Muar, one of the state’s larger towns, only has five bus routes. One of them is the Terminal Maharani to Jorak route.

Five rides a day, meaning if full, both ways carries 1,000 commuters. The whole system probably serves 5,000 commuters daily.

As a comparison, Klang Valley buses ferry 280,000 commuters daily, which is low for an advanced metropolitan of 8 million dwellers.

Back in Muar, miss the 7.30am bus for Jorak and there is the 10am to wait for. It is thrilling connectivity, all the way to the last bus at 6pm. That’s our smart state folks.

There are three routes inside Segamat, four in Kluang and none in Mersing.

Which thrust or element am I missing here?

I am going to guess, like I did insinuating about consultants, none of the senior civil servants on stage being feted by the local government ministry take the bus to work.

This is not to poke holes in the country’s efforts to be better. We are all ready to cheer the effort. But what is happening is that processes are manufactured and checkpoints marked without reciprocal meaning for the people intended to have “smarter” lives.

It’s a bit like increasing SPM A students annually while our graduate average compatibility with the new economy goes even quicker in the opposite direction.

When we get to grade ourselves using our own matrixes with data we collect, how can we ever go wrong? At worst, there is no bus in our smart towns. But honestly, are smart people expected to take buses?

It is simpler to talk about the key things needed from the councils rather than caught in the whirlpool of technical management speak which hides the direct things in abstractions.

Wasting time, midnight fire

Like talking about waste management, which is a fundamental role of the councils. An app is unnecessary to generate that opinion.

Most of the states rely on landfills.

By large, most Malaysians have zero input about waste management except that they do not want an incinerator near their homes.

They have almost tautological indifference to how wastes from millions of Malaysian homes are collected, redirected, processed or ultimately buried or burnt. They just do not want it incinerated anywhere remotely close to their bedrooms.

Johor has no incinerator, whether the garden variety or the latest waste to energy types.

And our smart cities, towns and states have religiously averted a serious discussion with the communities. Not an SDG or Smartcity framework consultant, but surely talking in a meaningful way with the population about waste management might be a start to manage waste management.

Buy-ins are difficult, almost elusive. However, how else to proceed without discussions with the voters rather than galas in Putrajaya?

To be fair, there are more town-halls in the country, but the people who run this country still believe that the people should limit themselves to slipping paper into suggestion boxes and leave the governing to them.

In short, the sessions only pay lip service.

Those who lead the councils know that the central change which needs to happen is to involve the people directly in the running of the councils.

They would have had a hard time explaining to classmates in the UK, Australia or the US where they did their postgraduate studies.

That Malaysia eschews ratepayers from controlling their councils and is utterly convinced this is the best way for humanity, let alone just Malaysians. They’d look the opposite of smart when they defend undemocratic local councils.

But that is OK, they get the Level 1-Smart City Early Adopter under the Malaysian Smart City rating back home.

* This is the personal opinion of the columnist.