Overloading and corruption not a new phenomenon

 

There was a front page story on Wednesday about a protection racket that the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission said involved 44 suspects, including 32 Road Transport Department (JPJ) enforcement officers.

This syndicate would selectively enforce the law. Overloaded lorries in Kedah, Perlis, Perak and Melaka were immune from enforcement if their operators paid up the membership fee of RM500 per truck through a broker in Melaka.

Conversely, those who didn’t pay up and who had the misfortune of being stopped by the suspect officers would suffer the consequences including ad hoc gratification.

It must be noted that the suspects are just a small minority in the total JPJ enforcement team.

Payments were by online bank transfer and that was the syndicate’s weakness that gave the whole game away to MACC.

It was an interesting story because it was quite scandalous. However, for those in the truck transport industry, it was interesting only in the sense that some suspects were caught and their operations in four states revealed.

Corruption scandals like this one have happened many times before. Transport operators knew about infamous syndicates that were never charged in court because the cargo owner and the contractor were powerful business owners with top political support.

One of the notorious tales of an overloading syndicate took place in the booming 1980s when the government of the day promoted heavy industrial projects. A steel mill in the east coast of Peninsular Malaysia needed thousands of tonnes of scrap metal and the government-appointed project chairman appointed a transport contractor.

This transport contractor was also a larger-than-life person noted for getting things done. The lorries were identified by a metal badge affixed above the front windscreen. On the badge was an acronym that represented the name of the company.

There were more than 50 of those 100% overloaded trucks (32 tonnes maximum permissible gross vehicle weight trucks carrying 60 tonnes or more of steel billet) crossing the Karak highway. That syndicate was never exposed, although it was probably a case of misuse of political power more than of corruption involving money.

For those Malaysians who were dismayed by Wednesday’s article and what they thought was further evidence of a nation faced with a decline in ethics and morals, perhaps we should put this in context.

Overloading of trucks is a phenomenon of an economy that is young and growing fast. There is hardly any truck overloading in Australia and Canada or in England whose road traffic laws were inherited by other Commonwealth nations. Overloading occurs in 2% to 5% of trucks, as in the United States.

Overloading of trucks is a problem in developing countries such as Malaysia, Thailand and India. In Malaysia, 25% of trucks are overloaded, according to a 2012 study published in the International Association of Traffic and Safety Sciences. It is almost a decade old and probably too conservative.

From another angle, almost all dump trucks (3-axle sand lorries) in the Klang Valley are over-engineered and constructed for overloading. In China’s Anhui province, 50% to 70% of heavy trucks are overloaded and that’s a more likely figure for Peninsular Malaysia if a study were to be conducted today.

In Malaysia, truck overloading and corruption occurred even during the colonial days when most of the Road Transport Department officers were Chinese and Indians. But it was not so organised probably because the scale was minute compared to today’s population of trucks.

There is a system to minimise corruption and this is by the well-documented method of:

1. Consistent all-weather and strict 24-hour enforcement,
2. An effective weighbridge network consisting of fixed and mobile systems, and
3. An appropriate set of laws (RM10,000 maximum for overloading is a meagre penalty).

Malaysia’s system could have incorporated a comprehensive weighbridge system. Almost three decades ago, when Malaysia was in the throes of building peninsula-spanning highways and road infrastructure, the works ministry implemented a network of weighbridge systems to protect its roads from overloaded lorries.

The network of weighbridges was then handed over to the transport ministry.

The joke, if you can call it that – the government spent RM5 billion from 2001 to 2010 on road repairs and refurbishment – was that the weighbridges were not at strategic locations. The weigh station for the East Coast Expressway at Gambang is easily seen when driving on the highway: it’s a nice picture of a serene quiet place with a car park with a few rusty hulks of seized vehicles. No observable activity is taking place.

Besides the cost of road repair and refurbishment, overloaded trucks take a toll on human lives. More enforcement against overloading means fewer traffic fatalities and permanently crippled.

Two studies in Thailand in 1997 and 2005 concluded that there were three policy options:

1. The government does nothing and the economic loss would be transferred to taxpayers.

2. The government reconfirms the current highway standards but restores strict law enforcement. This option is carried out in many countries because it is the most efficient method to eliminate overloaded trucks and save road repairing costs.

If this option is executed, existing measures must be adjusted to a suitable level. This is also a chance for other transportation modes to compete with truck transport, because the freight industry in Thailand is highly dependent on truck transport as 89% of freight depends on truck transport. Thus, this is an opportunity for the government to encourage the shift from truck transport to other modes.

3. Raise the highway standard and upgrade existing roads and bridges. The suggestion would involve a long-term project for the government because this would involve many significant factors, which include technical feasibility, overhauling costs of roads and bridges, transport economy, road safety, social justice and fair trade.

Probably, the middle path is the most effective for Malaysia in the context that the East Coast Rail Link will connect the east coast to Port Klang, while the double tracking of the north-south rail line will soon reach Johor Bahru.

With more alternatives for land transport, the authorities can afford to enforce effectively using a hybrid system of fixed weigh station and mobile weigh scales and so create the level playing field where a conscientious lorry operator would not be forced to overload just to keep his cargo rates competitive. And importantly, highway and road users would be safer. - FMT

The views expressed are those of the writer and do not necessarily reflect those of MMKtT.