In view of the failed traffic management initiative , DAP has criticised the federal government’s wastage of funds on the Integrated Transport Information System (ITIS) launched in 2002. Following the lack of success of ITIS that cost RM 365 million, an additional RM 200 million will be poured into the project to rescue and revive the traffic management system.  The new RM 200 million project was awarded this year to Global Sdn Bhd  (GTC), which has since been taken over by Telekom Malaysia Bhd.

Some of the causes for the failure of the initial project have been the inability of the federal government to anticipate the expiration of technology that was used initially, such as the black and white cameras that had become obsolete.

MP for Bagan Lim Guan Eng highlighted in his statement today that a total of RM 565 million will be spent on a traffic management system that failed when similar systems in other countries such as in Hong Kong and Singapore have been successful.

“This begs the question why other countries can succeed whilst ours fail despite spending hundreds of millions of ringgit?,”he asked.

Lim Guan Eng, who is also the Chief Minister of Penang had expressed that the state has been contemplating some form of traffic management system to manage traffic congestion after being approached by several vendors but have preferred to see how ITIS functions and operates.

“Its monumental losses and abject failure has caused the Penang state government to pause and adopt a wait and see attitude to see whether how well ITIS can, if at all, function,” said Lim.

“However, Malaysians cannot afford to adopt a wait and see attitude towards those responsible for the RM 565 million ITIS scandal. There must not only be full accountability and transparency but the Federal government must be unforgiving and punish severely the wrongdoers who wasted public funds on a system that simply failed to work,” he added. -The Rocket