Social media users took to Twitter to express their disgust over the apathy shown by the authorities in patching up potholes in roads under their jurisdiction.
They said the Public Works Department (JKR) was practising double standards in apologising to Science, Technology and Innovation Minister Khairy Jamaluddin, who suffered minor injuries after his bicycle hit a pothole in Banting, Selangor, yesterday.
In a response a few hours after the “mishap”, JKR said it would take prompt action to patch the pothole and hoped Khairy will quickly recover from his injuries.
A Twitter user, who goes by the name of AZaM, wrote: “If it was an ordinary person involved, they (JKR) would ignore it. It’s sad that double standards are being practised here.”
A tweet by “Darth Vader” said: “If it was just the normal rakyat, would you apologise? He is a minister. Just do your job, it may save the lives of the people.”
Another Twitter user, Rano Pano, while showing dissatisfaction over the delay in patching up potholes, said this particular pothole was patched up despite it being a Sunday.
“I urge KJ’s (Khairy) officers to provide the route that he will be using next week, so that JKR will patch up more roads,” he said sarcastically.
In his tweet, retweeted more than 3,500 times, Khairy posted pictures of his bruised face and the pothole, beside a ditch.
“Pothole, ditch, KJ. 2020 keeps giving,” he tweeted.
In October, there were renewed calls to the government to patch up potholes instead of renaming streets after the Federal Territories Ministry announced plans to rename Jalan Raja Laut 1 as Jalan Palestin to show solidarity with the Palestinians.
There is a group called Ikatan Silaturahim Brotherhood, formed in 2011, which voluntarily fixes potholes when local authorities take too long to patch broken roads.
On Nov 3, it was reported that a total of 52,295 reports on potholes in Selangor alone was recorded on navigation app Waze between January 2019 to September 2020.
From the amount, 37,130 reports were on potholes on roads maintained by local councils and 10,219 were on roads under the Works Department.
Another 4,553 reports were on roads falling under the purview of the Selangor state works department and 393 on roads under the district land office.