KUALA LUMPUR, June 24 — DAP MP Liew Chin Tong today questioned the effectiveness of the alleged “outsourcing” of public transport to the Prime Minister’s Department (PMD), arguing that it should instead be under the Transport Ministry’s oversight.
Liew said it does not make sense operationally for public transport to be carved out from Transport Minister Datuk Seri Liow Tiong Lai’s portfolio to allow the latter’s ministry to focus on the broad areas of aviation, sea transport and private road vehicles, claiming that making such “false distinctions” between different type of transport reduces Liow’s functions to that of a “Minister for Transport by Air, Sea, and Private Vehicles”.
“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,” the Kluang MP said in a statement today.
Liew said the carving out of public transport makes it “more cumbersome”, noting that the “natural synergy and seamless logic of planning under-one-roof” if all types of transport were handled by the same ministry would be lost.
He pointed to various examples of inefficiencies, such as when two ministers made conflicting statements on e-hailing motorcycle service Dego Ride.
“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,” the DAP national political education director added.
The Land Public Transport Commission (SPAD) falls under Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department Nancy Shukri’s oversight. She also oversees Commercial Vehicle Licensing Board (CVLB) Sarawak and CVLB Sabah, as well as the Malaysian Innovation Agency, Malaysia Nuclear Power Corporation and Malaysian Industry Government Group for High Technology (MIGHT).
Liew further pointed out that the Transport Ministry has no representative sitting in SPAD, listing its members as Tan Sri Isa Samad, Datuk Wan Ahmad Shihab Ismail from the Prime Minister’s Office, corporate figure Datuk Siow Kim Lun, Universiti Sains Malaysia academic Prof Dr Ahmad Farhan, Works Ministry and Plantation Ministry’s former secretary-general Datuk Himmat Singh, former Town and Country Planning Department director-general Datin Paduka Dr Dahlia Rosly, Datuk Asri Hamidon, SPAD CEO Azharuddin Mat Sah.
“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?” he asked.
“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,” he added.
Yesterday, Nancy had explained why SPAD was carved out from the Transport Ministry, noting that the government wanted an entity with its own pool of resources and expertise to concentrate on improving the quality of land public transport.
