In Public Transport Only Political Appointee Is Me Loke Quips

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Transport Minister Anthony Loke stresses that it’s his personal stance that there be no political appointments in the public transport sector.
He said public transport operators must be led by professionals instead.
Loke said he had previously expressed this to Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim, adding that it must be maintained.
"For (public) transportation, only one political appointment is enough: the transport minister," he joked last night during a forum on public transportation in Menara Prasarana, Petaling Jaya.
When Anwar came into power following the 15th general election, his administration terminated the contracts of all chairpersons and board members made through political appointments in government-linked bodies.
However, two weeks ago, during the PKR congress, Anwar defended political appointments, asserting that those made by a government to qualified individuals should be allowed.
PM and PKR president Anwar IbrahimIn October, the Institute for Democracy and Economic Affairs' (Ideas) ranking of the highest number of political appointments made by recent prime ministers found that Anwar was the second-lowest.
Prasarana doing good
Loke said that Prasarana Malaysia Berhad, the main operator of rail and bus services in the Klang Valley, has shown marked improvement in the years that he has held the transport portfolio.
"Over time, Prasarana has improved. All of our (transport) lines have improved. Technical disruptions have not been eliminated, but have still been reduced.
"Before, maybe every one or two weeks, there would be a technical disruption. Now we have one maybe once or twice every two months," he added.
Prasarana CEO Azharuddin Mat Sah made a presentation earlier during the event, which showed that disruptions to lifts at its stations had reduced from 17 out of 319 units in 2022 to none at all out of 448 units thus far this year.
Disruptions to escalators have also been reduced, from 49 out of 656 units in 2022 to three out of 906 this year.
For lighting disruptions, there were 14,400 out of 86,700 in 2022, which reduced to 357 out of 116,700 this year. - Mkini

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