According to Prasarana Malaysia Bhd’s first CEO, Datuk Ridza Abdoh Salleh, the cause of the LRT Kelana Jaya line service disruption might be an act of sabotage.
He was responding to a theory by an industry observer on the allegation of sabotage to the extent that the management has been unable to pinpoint the exact cause of ATC failure.
Ridza stated on LinkedIn that Prasarana is a very complex organisation that employs a diverse range of professionals.
“Having too many layers at the top consuming big fat salaries is not only creating unnecessary red tape and bureaucracy but also can cause animosity among the staff.”
Ridza said he had previously spoken of ideas on the kind of overhauling that Prasarana needs.
“Prasarana or RapidKL is not a place to earn fat salaries and do nothing. Everyone, from top to bottom, must dedicate themselves to work tirelessly. It is because LRT operations never stop 365 days a year, including Christmas or Hari Raya.
“Having meetings in an air-conditioned room is a temporary adventure. The real test is when 16 stations are closed, as announced (that day).
“I am not blaming the current management, but I hope the management and the board will take my hint seriously if we want to prevent similar failures from happening in the future,” he had written on LinkedIn on Wednesday.
“I have full confidence in the local experts. Now, they (Prasarana team) said they can’t find the cause and solve the crisis by themselves. I don’t understand it since we’ve been running the system for 25 years. This is about managing,” he said.
“I am sharing what I know based on my experience developing from scratch and running the LRT service for seven years, according to The Vibes.
“Back then, we even had more problems from the beginning than today, and we overcame it with grit and we learned the hard way. We designed the system and even the designer was sceptical of how it was going to work.
“We had a lot of problems, but we learned it ourselves. We were self-trained. We didn’t go overseas to learn everything, and I didn’t allow anyone, including myself, to go overseas, including for conferences for four years.
“Everybody stayed put, worked hard and understood the whole system. We broke even and made some profit in operations when we started the Putra LRT,” he wrote.
He pointed out that he doesn’t blame the current Prasarana president and group CEO, Mohd Azharuddin Mat Sah.
