KUALA LUMPUR, June 15 — Transport Minister Anthony Loke said today that a good culture of maintenance must be created for public transport systems in Malaysia, as a step towards greater adoption of such transport.

Loke said that in the case of Prasarana — the government-owned company that operates the Rapid public transport systems — the Ministry of Finance has been allocating the necessary funding for maintenance, but in the past, it may have diverted the funding into other areas instead.

"Also you have to look at Prasarana, in the past few years, there has probably been a lot of disruption in terms of leadership and in management.

"The changes of the management team have been too frequent,” he said in an interview with radio channel BFM this morning.

Loke said that he was "happy” with the current board of directors and management, adding that he had previously worked with Prasarana chief executive officer (CEO) Mohd Azharuddin Mat Sah when the latter was CEO of the Land Public Transport Commission (SPAD).

"It is easier for me to communicate and to understand each other and to make it very clear to them what the priority is,” he said.

Loke added that he has instructed Prasarana to move towards publishing weekly data on the health of its services, such as ridership and frequency of disruption issues, on its website.

When questioned on frequent public complaints regarding flight disruptions and customers not being compensated fairly, Loke agreed that regulations involved need to be improved but did not elaborate on whether there were any specific policies being worked on towards this end.

On policies regarding the installation and maintenance of submarine fibre optic cables, Loke said that he has met with several technology company representatives and has reached an understanding on the matter.

"Currently, operationally they do not face any issue, but moving forward they want to have clarity, they want to have a better policy, which we are doing. We are trying to have a workshop together, to look at all the issues,” he said.

Back in 2020, former transport minister Datuk Seri Wee Ka Siong removed an exemption on restrictions regarding foreign vessels operating in Malaysian waters, that previously allowed foreign companies to install and maintain undersea cables here.

Following the move, tech giants Facebook and Google in August 2021 announced a new "state-of-the-art” undersea cable network connecting Singapore to Japan, but did not include Malaysia as a beneficiary.