MALAYSIA, once known for its world-class roads, is now noted for its potholes.
The state of our roads is so bad that we now have road activists.
One such person is Lando Zawawi, whose video footage is much about potholes and politics.
He sees a link between the two and if he is right, then our politics is no different from the American one where corrupt contractors turn election campaign contributors.
We leave that to our graft-busters. They may have a field day. If you tell the authorities that our roads are in a bad state, they will come after you with a newfound animus, as they did in 2022 when Zutobi, an American driver's education company, published a study that told the world that Malaysia had the 12th worst roads in the world.
If that is not enough, they returned with another study ranking us better and saying our roads were world-class when they were built.
But that is not the point at all. The question is, why allow our world-class roads to have kilometres of potholes? But first, let's talk about roads in Malaysia.
There are three kinds of roads: federal, state and toll expressways. The first is under the administration of the federal Public Works Department (PWD) and the second is under the administration of the state and district PWD.
Toll expressways, though technically considered federal roads, are under the administration of the Malaysian Highway Authority (MHA).
As a result, the responsibility for Malaysian roads is divided among three entities. But this isn't the reason why our roads are known more for their potholes.
All three road networks face quality issues, varying only in degree. Call it a spot-the-pothole challenge.
Of the three, the toll highways — operated by private companies —should be free of potholes and other quality issues, but they are not.
For-profit need not necessarily mean for potholes. What used to be a smooth drive north and south of the peninsula roads is now an obstacle course.
We need an app to alert us of potholes ahead because there are just too many. A natural question people ask is: why isn't the MHA acting against the toll operators?
Toll operators collect hefty tolls, but they don't seem to spend the money to maintain the expressways to world-class standards.
Sub-standard contractors, poor quality materials and weak supervision have been quoted as reasons before.
Transport expert Rosli Khan adds corruption to the list. He puts it thus: construction of highways and roads is closely linked to corrupt practices, bribery and inflated prices. What's worse is this. Even consulting engineers, Rosli laments, are in cahoots with them all.
So, the pothole story is about unqualified contractors, poor-quality materials, weak supervision and more. And the "more" leads us down Rosli's track to why unqualified contractors get engaged, poor quality materials get used and supervision doesn't happen at all. It is time to call corruption for what it is.
A big "C". Why not? It is there in rice, rail, and now, roads. As this Leader was going to press, the Auditor General's Report was back with the bad news of delayed and cancelled projects.
Strangely, governance seems so hard to do here. Be it rice, rail or roads.