In all my 20 or so years of writing about the information and communications technology (ICT) industry, including in Malaysia, ICT systems and solutions vendors, government ministers and officials have spoken about how ICT can be used to transform Malaysia's cities and towns into smart cities, in which public facilities, including traffic lights, traffic flow, water, municipal, electricity supply infrastructure, the movements of urban rail, buses and so forth are remotely monitored, managed and controlled by computer from a centralised control room in the city 24 by 7.
Smart city facilities also include intelligent building access systems, such as those in some buildings where the security desk reads visitors' personal details from their MyKAD smart national identification cardt, which are then returned to the holder along with a smart pass which allows access only to the relevant floor and not others, and which visitors must surrender by dropping them into a box at the exit turnstyle when they leave.
Malaysia's first smart cities which I first heard of way back in the late 1990s are the new administrative capital Putrajaya and next to it Cyberjaya, the heart of Malaysia's ICT and multimedia industry development initiative.
These two, especially Putrajaya were said to serve as models of what Malaysia's modern, tech-savvy, efficient civil service, urban planning and municipal management should be for the rest of Malaysia to emulate but 20 years later, it appears that despite its impressive and grandiose looking buildings, with wide public sidewalks along its roads, impressive gardens and landscaping; however at best, Putrajaya and Cyberjaya remain oases of first world urban elegance amidst a wider sea of third world urban mediocrity, and at worst, the mediocrity, inefficiencies, disorganisatiion, poor management and so forth in the federal, state and local authority civil services, poor municipal management, poor urban planning and so forth beyond them, have seeped into these two "model" cities, thus degrading them instead.
For instance, there are way insufficient proper parking facilities, such as covered, multi-storey car parks provided for members of the public who visit the government departments in the impressive buildings in Putrajaya. Instead, vacant plots of land nearby them are used as ad-hoc public car parks, albeit free of charge but still the government should not take the citizens it is supposed to serve for granted and treat us like serfs at the mercy of their "lordships".
Last year and in 2017, I visited the Ministry of Health's Medical Device Authority which was then located in Menara Prisma, Presint 3, Putrajaya, just next to Persiaran Perdana (Premier Drive) a long, straight, wide boulevard which runs from the Prime Minister's Office at one end, all the way past buildings housing Malaysia's major ministries and departments, as well as the Palace of Justice housing Malaysia's Federal Court and Court of Appeal.
When we got to the security desk on the ground floor of Menara Prisma, I found that the security guards asked to hold on to visitors' MyKAD, whilst they would manually record the visitors' details, give him or her a pass to go up to the relevant office and return the MyKAD to visitors when they hand back their passes when they leave.
Also, I had expected that especially in a building in this oh so "smart" city of Putrajaya, they would have had computerised facilities at the security desk which can read and record visitors' details from their MyKAD from its smart chip, as well as read and record visitors' thumb prints if necessary to ensure they match those stored in respective MyKADs and then return the MyKADs back to the visitors, just like they have at public service counters in government departments such as EPF (Employees Provident Fund/KWSP), in bank counters and in some private buildings, but here they did it manually and demanded to hold onto visitors' MyKADs.
On the other hand, perhaps they have such a computerised system but as often happens, it could have been a case of "computer down" at the time. So much for "smart cities" and "smart building management".
Many of you may not know this, but it is against the law in Malaysia for anyone including security guards to demand to hold onto your MyKAD. They can ask you for your MyKAD to record your personal details manually or electronically and then must return your MyKAD to you before you go up to the relevant office.
In 2013, I was part of a media party which went up from Kuala Lumpur by bus to cover the Malaysian launch of a new PC processor on a cruise ship which and the tour guide on our bus told us that when we board the ship, we would have to surrender our MyKAD to the ships administrative staff, who would issue us with a ship's card and receipt, whilst they will hold on to our MyKAD and return it to us when we disembark, which our this case was the following day. This overnight cruise was only a joy cruise out into the Straits of Malacca and back to Penang the next day.
I SMS-ed my friend in the Attorney General's Chambers who SMS-ed back the relevant act and clauses as well as the penalties for violation, which I presented to the ships administrative staff whilst boarding and told them that I refuse to let them hold my MyKAD and that it is against the law. They called a more senior staff member who gave me a form on which to fill in my personal details and let me hold onto my MyKAD throughout the voyage. This more senior staff informed me that the ship's administration needed to hold our MyKAD so they could record our details whilst we were on board and present them to Malaysian immigration as was required.
Well, if they had insisted on holding onto my MyKAD, as I was travelling light, I was prepared to walk off the ship, take the ferry across to Butterworth and take the train or a coach back to Kuala Lumpur at my own expense, rather than give in to such intimidation.
This cruise line could have installed a computerised recording system on their ships to read our MyKADs and even to scan and record our fingerprints for verification upon our boarding, and then return our MyKADs to us there and then and provide a printed or softcopy record of the personal details all passengers who boarded to Immigration. They also could use the same system to record our personal details from our MyKADs when we disembark after the voyage.
I suggested this to the more senior staff who dealt with my complaint, though I don't know whether they have implemented such as system by now.
So much for all the grandiose talk about "e-government", "smart cities", "smart building management systems" and so forth in the past 20 years or more - all much talk but little action on the ground.
Meanwhile, in the Free Malaysia Today article of 26 February 2019, David Chua, a former member of the Kuala Lumpur City Hall (DBKL) Advisory Board advises the Federal Territories Ministry to deal with the basic problems of public transportation first, instead of fantasising about "smart cities", "sustainability" and so forth.
Kudos to you, David Chua. Thank you for telling the Federal Territories Ministry to stop fantasising about such high falutin stuff such as "smart cities" and to get the basics right first.
Over the past 20 years or so, I've covered more of these conferences and seminars on ICT than I can remember, and more often than not, all the gee whiz stuff described there have remained within the splendid, hallowed confines of the conference and seminar halls, and very rarely have made it into reality on the ground.
Also, 10 years later, I'm pretty sure you will still be hearing the same old "songs" being "sung" about "smart cities", "urban sustainability" and so forth at conferences and seminars, whilst the "song remains the same" on the ground, to paraphrase that early 1970s Led Zeppelin song - The Song Remains the Same.
Let's face it, quite often, conferences and seminars are a great excuse for government officers and business executives to spend a day away from the office in 5-star or 6-star luxury, for systems vendors and marketers to win customers and business, for invited professional speakers to gain further exposure and earn speaking fees or for the organisers make money from paying attendees - or as a public relations consultant once put it to me, "from the number of (paying) bums in seats".
So Federal Territories Ministry, stop talking all this IT scheiss and deal with the basic urban problems first.
This messages goes out to you too - Petaling Jaya City Council (MBPJ) and your "PJ a Liveable City" crap, when you have allowed too many high-rise buildings to sprout up in Petaling Jaya and turn it into an unliveable concrete jungle.
This message also goes out to other local authorities and state governments across Malaysia.
Read on:-
