Puspakom Suffers The Al Bukhari Syndrome

The Star had it in large enough type today.

Touts in control 

• Syndicates cashing in on loopholes in Puspakom's vehicle inspection booking system, forcing many individuals to the back of the line.
• SYNDICATES are cashing in on the weaknesses in Puspakom’s vehicle inspection booking system.
• The syndicates, with the aid of their runners, are preying on individuals who do not want to go through the “hassle” of a tedious inspection process while also dictating the routine inspection queue for vehicles at the inspection centres.
• The presence of an increasing number of runners or touts has not gone down well with the public, especially vehicle owners who feel the touts have taken control of operations at these centres.
• Starprobe checked out three Puspakom centres — Desa Tun Razak Industrial Park in Cheras, Padang Jawa and Taman Alam Megah, both in Shah Alam — and found that the touts call the shots daily at these centres.

There are more headlines and pictures in The Star.

Long, long wait at Puspakom. Public bullied by touts who call the shots.  

• Bullied into a long wait
• Touts offer customers 'hassle-free' deal.

• Vehicle owners who do not hire these syndicates are forced to wait not for hours but days to get their turn for inspection.  ..  
• The taxi driver who only identifies himself as Mat said he was made to wait for 12 hours because of the booking system. "I arrived at the Puspakom centre in Cheras at 5am and my car left the centre about 5pm".

I think you get the picture. This seems to be a perpetual problem at Puspakom.  The unsuspecting public is bullied into paying 'processing fees' to speed up their vehicle inspection. If they dont pay, then they have to wait 12 hours or days. Then their vehicles will not pass the inspection test. 

Obviously there is rampant corruption going on. In situations like this, it implies that the place is "fully wired". The touts are connected to their taikos who are connected to the people inside. The loot has to be put into a pool and then shared among everybody. 

There must be a bookkeeper, an accountant of sorts, the money runner, there must be calculations to sort out pegawai tinggi dapat berapa, pegawai rendah dapat berapa, boss dapat berapa and such. There must be a complex organisation behind this.  These touts work for someone. 

Imagine if there are 500 cars per day and every car pays an average RM50 Ringgit 'processing fees' that is already RM25,000 per day. What about the lorries and trucks. Say there are 100 lorries and each lorry pays RM200, that is another RM20,000 per day. I think at some of these busy Puspakom centres they can easily pocket RM50,000 or more per day. That is a lot of money. RM1.5 million per month.

When will Puspakom ever clean up its act? I dont think they will. I recall speaking to the former CEO of Puspakom about this issue about three years ago.  I think he has left the position.   

The same crap used to happen with that other service monopoly - the company that has the franchise over calibrating weighing machines. If you took the weighing machine by yourself for calibration, they will not pass your machine. They may even do something to make it "rosak". (This happened to us twice). But if you went through the touts, the machine will pass the calibration test.  After many complaints were made they cleaned up their act a little. But I dont know their latest status.

This is the problem when "service monopolies" are created in a society where the culture of  tutup mata sebelah, malas nak kerja, corruption and other ills are already rampant.  The lure of free and easy money is too strong a temptation to resist. 

There is a simple way to overcome this problem. DO NOT CREATE such service monopolies. 

If the vehicle inspection service has to be privatised, give it to three or four companies. If we wish to further the bumiputra agenda, then give it to three different bumiputras and one non-bumiputra company. And very, very, very importantly their market base must overlap. Meaning they must compete for the same customers. This is very, very important.

No point giving one monopoly for Perak, Kedah, Penang and Perlis and another monopoly for Selangor, Melaka, NS and such. That wont work. 

Allow four different vehicle inspection centres inside Kuala Lumpur, operated by four different companies. The public will have more choice. This will reduce the chances for corruption.

Secondly award these monopolies to entrepreneurs who will also operate the business themselves. 

Has anyone seen Syed Mokhtar Al Bukhary anywhere near a Puspakom vehicle inspection site? Has Syed Mokhtar Al Bukhari ever shaken hands with any of his customers who are waiting for their vehicles to be inspected?   I dont think so.  This operating by absence does not create entrepreneurship at all.  Lets be frank - Puspakom is not going to learn how to compete and survive in the real world. 

Here is a personal message for Tuan Syed Mokhtar Al Bukhary. I hope the dozens if not hundreds of his minions who will read this Blog will sampaikan this message to Tuan Syed Mokhtar Al Bukhary.  

The Star quotes a taxi driver by the name of Mat who said :  "I arrived at the Puspakom centre in Cheras at 5am and my car left the centre about 5pm".

A taxi driver is a poor man. He is already sweating blood driving his taxi eight to 12 hours a day to earn his 'rezeki'. He cannot afford to pay the RM50 or RM100 bribe to the touts. So he has to wait 12 hours. He has lost his income for one day.  If he pays the bribe he still loses his income for one day.  Tuan Syed, macam ini ke cari rezeki halal?  

Tuan Syed, there is a saying called 'the buck stops here'. Maksudnya mesti ada seorang di peringkat atas sekali yang akan bertanggung jawab ke atas segala-gala yang berlaku di bawahnya. That person has to be you. Why? Because everyone knows you are the ultimate boss of Puspakom. 

Without the people inside working "hand in hand" with the touts on the outside, there is no way this type of corrupt practise can thrive.  I hope you will take a personal interest and look into this recurring problem at Puspakom as soon as possible.

Also please look at it another way too - for every single vehicle owner who gets bullied at Puspakom, tak lulus inspection sebab tak bayar duit kepada touts atau orang yang terpaksa bayar duit kepada touts - the BN Gomen loses one vote. 

So for everyday that this touts problem persists at all your Puspakom inspection centres, the BN loses thousands of votes.  Tuan Syed, kalau BN kalah PRU13 please rest assured that you will be doing what you were doing about 40 years ago.  

So please take a personal interest in this recurring problem and fix it once and for all.  Indications are the general elections are not until March 2013 - so we still have about two months.  That is more than enough time to fix this problem. You can fix this problem in just two days.