A total of 2,744 complaints regarding potholes were received by the Ipoh City Council (MBI) since January from members of the public using the 24-hour WhatsApp application (through the 017-4122113 number or QR code) which was developed by MBI for the convenience of city folks.
From the total, about 2,349 cases or 85.6% were resolved within the allocated period, proving the efficiency of the two-way complaint channel.
Assistant Director of Engineering (Roads) of MBI, Izdihar Niszar Syafiq Sarlan explained that the complaint application was an initiative of the Mayor, Datuk Rumaizi Baharin who wanted an innovative approach to resolve issues of the city including potholes.
According to him, complaints submitted by the people inclusive of locations will be received directly by the Engineering Department (Roads) of the MBI before reviews are done to identify the damage for immediate repair.
“A pothole is a hollow spot on a road surface occurring due to various reasons and must be repaired. Thus, the complaint channel is aimed to reduce the cases of accidents caused by potholes; it is a major concern of the MBI,” he said during a session of the “MBI dan Anda Siri 2” (MBI and You Series 2) which was broadcasted live via the MBI Facebook page yesterday morning (April 22). The topic discussed was on road maintenance.
The session was conducted by Senior Director (Administration and Operations) of MBI, Musa Din as the moderator.
To sum up, there are three types of common road damages, namely sedimentation, crack and structural damage.
Complaints on potholes are commonly received and the management of MBI welcomes feedback from Ipohites even if it is a repeat complaint, in order to improve service quality.
During the same session, Director of City Engineering, A’zman Mohd. Harun stated that MBI is in charge of regulating 3,292 km of roads including 811km of back alleys which are roads located between two buildings.
The other two categories are federal roads of 35km and state roads of 70km under the regulation of the Public Works Department.
The state government had appointed Puncak Emas Sdn. Bhd. since 2019 as the concession to maintain the roads managed by MBI, including repair works for street lamps, cleaning works for drains and channels.
“Although there is concession, the responsibility still lies with MBI as the administrator. Therefore, we have to receive feedback from the public and extend it to the concession for immediate action,” he said.
Also maintained by the concession are road furniture like signboards, speed bumps, bus stops, safety barriers and street lamps.
Meanwhile, complaints on concrete lamp poles by the roadside are under the responsibility of Tenaga Nasional Berhad if damages occur.
According to A’zman, the risk of road damage due to a sunken hole can occur suddenly. For example, unexpected cases involving other agencies such as telecommunication (telco) providers.
“This is because there are roads that share routes with sewage pipe networks, gas pipes and telco cables, for example. These situations are unavoidable. However, MBI as local authorities remain responsible and we constantly remind related agencies to inform of any works related to this matter,” he said.
Rosli Mansor
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