You are what you build

As a kid growing up I was fascinated by mysteries.

One that tickled my curiosity was why the North-South highway had to be resurfaced annually when thousand-year-old Roman roads in Europe continue to be in service with minimal maintenance.

It was a question I asked my dad during our many, many discussions on local mysteries.

As one who had served in the Economic Planning Unit (EPU) in the Prime Minister's Department and later the Penang EPU - before going corporate and later into business on his own - my father would share insights with me from his good old days in government.

Without naming names, companies or departments, he would spin me a tale of an Englishman who came to Malaysia on a consultation contract to research the best scenario to build a highway from north to south.

Apparently the man suggested a complicated and expensive one-off solutions that would see our roads last as long as the thousand-year-old Roman creations.

But those who build our highways allegedly opted to cut corners for a cheaper alternative.

My dad would joke that the annual resurfacing - due to shoddy construction - was more acceptable to some as it would provide more work for contractors of a certain class.

He would then turned serious and say that cutting corners and harbouring a tidak apa (couldn’t care less) attitude about maintenance may contribute to many more local mysteries involving critical national infrastructure like highways.

In a world where push-button convenience is the norm, Malaysia increasingly depends on a network of modern infrastructure to deliver daily needs and wants.

Third-world maintenance culture

But if what my late father told me is true, then the delicate balance of our lives may not be far away from collapse.

The portends are all there - the blackout at the Department of Civil Aviation's Subang air traffic control centre, thepower disruption at the Kota Kinabalu International Airport(left) and another hiccup at the Universiti Malaya Medical Centre.

In all three cases, the emergency generators did not kick in when power was lost.

Although there was no loss of life or other forms of devastation, it begged the question as to whether the back-up systems were working at all, and if the main system itself was maintained well enough in the first place.

These may have been ‘small’ incidents, but are no small matter especially at a time when we are inviting hazardous industries like a rare earths refinery to operate on our shores or contemplating the use of nuclear power.

Perhaps we should hold off adding hazardous industries and nuclear power to the mix, until such a time as maintenance of existing infrastructure is strengthened.

If our health is determined by ‘you are what you eat’, I think that our safety is determined by how we develop and maintain infrastructure.

In this case, ‘you are what you build’.

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HAZLAN ZAKARIA is a member of the Malaysiakini team.