KKR Contradict with a Research Ranked Malaysian Roads The 12th Worst Globally

The Works Ministry (KKR) has denied a recent article that paints a negative picture of Malaysia's overall road quality.

According to a study conducted by a driving education firm Zutobi, Malaysia falls under the world's 12 worst roads. The firm’s data reported that Malaysian road quality has dropped significantly by more than 5% in the last five years, with the country having the second highest number of road deaths at 22.76 per 100,000 people.

As a result, the report only considers four factors: road quality, road quality improvement, road deaths, and the relative size of the road network which considers data from 59 countries.

KKR relates the research to another study titled “Road quality in Malaysia 21 best in the world, surpassing Australia, Britain, New Zealand" using sources released by The Global Economy. The data collected derives based on road quality components published by the Global Competitiveness Index.

On top of that, according to data from Utusan Malaysia's study, the country's road ranked among the best, scoring 5.3 points out of a total range of seven points.

The road level in Malaysia reported to be better than Sweden (23rd), Canada (31), Australia (33rd), Britain (37th) and ranked second in Southeast Asia.

KKR also receives more than RM900,000 in allocations as road maintenance costs throughout the country and 6,656 patching potholes has been implemented until last August.

With that being said, there are various ongoing commitments carried out by KKR specifically in maintaining the quality of roads in the country which focuses on Federal Roads with a total length of 20,017 kilometres.

In addition, an additional allocation of RM130 million has been approved for the purpose of Development Expenditure for Periodic Maintenance of Pavements on Jalan Persekutuan Malaysia as a one-off through a letter from the Ministry of Finance of Malaysia on 13 September last.

Sources: BERNAMA