Thursday 28 Mar 2024
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(April 10): The newly-created Aviation Commission must report to Parliament for scrutiny and public safety, and not the prime minister who is already tainted by his links to debt-laden sovereign wealth fund 1Malaysia Development Bhd (1MDB), PKR said today.

Party vice-president Nurul Izzah Anwar also said that a commission board which reports to the prime minister would only open up another “wormhole” of conflicting interests and could be abused.

She said an independent commission was crucial given that previous appointments by the Prime Minister's Office have proven to further centralise responsibility and escape accountability.

Nurul Izzah cited as example the launch of Malindo Airlines by the prime minister in September 2012, five months ahead of the Department of Civil Authority (DCA) awarding the aviation licence to the airline in February the following year.

"It is time the Malaysian government takes stock of what is at stake and immediately moves to ensure that the newly created Aviation Commission lives up to expectations," she said in a statement today.

She added that the commission, which received legislative approval at the recent Dewan Rakyat sitting which saw many bills bulldozed through, would cost taxpayers RM90 million in initial seed funding.

This amount was alarming, she said, given that 6,000 Malaysia Airlines employees would be facing the sack under a restructuring scheme for the ailing company, which has been hit by two major air disasters.

Nurul Izzah said that while the need to salvage the airline from its financial losses was understandable, Putrajaya's move to spend through various agencies and commissions without details of its effectiveness  smacked of extreme irresponsibility.

Apart from the air disasters, other issues that have left a bad mark on the country's aviation history included DCA's incompetence in the  direct tender approach used in the choice of a radar system software provider and the radar failure incident at the Subang terminal in 2012, she added.

She also cited Malaysia Airport Holdings Bhd's (MAHB) lack of accountability in the long-standing issue over the construction of new budget terminal, klia2.

She urged Putrajaya to ensure the independence of the Aviation Commission, adding that no personalities previously involved with MAHB, DCA or the Transport Ministry should be heading it.

"The government must immediately address concerns of ensuring the independence of the commission by selecting an executive chairman who is a committed professional with sufficient geo-technical background, lest we end up with another newly built runway with cracks before the six months’ completion time is up, like klia2.

"No personalities previously involved with MAHB or the DCA or the Ministry of Transport should be helming the commission," she added.

In August last year, sovereign wealth fund Khazanah Nasional Bhd unveiled a radical plan to revive MAS that called for job cuts, a capital injection of up to RM6 billion and the creation of a new company to carry out the airline business.

The airline has suffered losses in the last three financial years and the twin tragedies of flights MH370 and MH17 last year made a revival more difficult. Given the challenging environment in the aviation sector, MAS had warned that the weak financial performance was likely to continue.

Last month, Khazanah announced that MAS would issue employment termination letters with three months’ notice to all its employees on June 1, instead of the earlier schedule of April 1. – The Malaysian Insider

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