LETTER | Falling trees expose our poor maintenance culture

LETTER | The several trees that came crashing down in several places - from Kuala Lumpur to Nilai, do tell a story.

As the country faces climate change, the sudden, heavy downpours are claimed to be the sole cause of the trees uprooting.

Behind these curtains of excuses, lies the truth.

Our Malaysian habit of having a poor maintenance culture in all probability is the root cause.

Authorities charged with the responsibility of maintaining our streets, walkways and curbside trees must be more transparent, accountable and upfront.

Trees do not come crashing down for no reason.

Either they are old and dying; or have succumbed to disease; or worse, have been badly mauled with the “development” works being carried out around the trees. Plus, there is no one monitoring the trees.

All these are tantamount to the glaring fact that we fail repeatedly to sustain a maintenance culture with strict, quality-controlled standard operating procedures.

This absence of a reliable, gold-standard maintenance culture is prevalent in the country.

From offices and administrative to business premises right up to our “tamans”, there are glaring examples of how maintenance is lagging.

Just look at our hospitals, government buildings, shop lots, markets, schools and public parks - when launching and a year down the road and you get the drift.

Our culture is one of knee-jerk actions, for the authorities to tackle problems after repeated complaints or definitely when the media goes to town with an expose.

And the standard answers or explanations we get, all the time, further attest to our shabby maintenance culture.

From politicians to heads of government departments we hear, "We will look into it" or they end up blaming everything under the sun except owning up to this lack of a maintenance culture in our society.

Unless and until we revolutionise this tardy maintenance culture, nothing is going to work.

And we, as usual, end up taking cover under the name of God to escape accountability.

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