As a long time resident of Kepong, we were the first district to embrace tolled roads at Jalan Kuching for which the concession was extended after the expiry period due to the intervention of the Works Minister S Samy Vellu.

Later on, Cheras residents had the honour when toll booths were installed due to the upgrading of a road there.

One tends to wonder why the rich and opulent residents of the elite addresses in the city like Taman Tun, Damansara Heights and Kenny Hills do not have to pay tolls like their poor cousins in Kepong and Cheras

Much traffic has travelled on the tolled roads and the highway concessionaires must be laughing all the way to the bank. Particularly, as the flow of traffic seems to increase every year.

Now we have a new Middle Ring Road II (MMRII) highway, which was built less than two years ago, and failing us due to structural defects .

Even with the best consultants from overseas, the Works Ministry cannot fathom why this has happened and the contractor of the project will probably not be billed for the repair work.

The repair cost of RM20 million quoted (from taxpayers' money) will now have to be spent on rectifying something which would not have happened in the first place if everybody involved had been determined to complete a first-class example of infrastructure.

This is what we reap when transparency and fair play are not adhered to and big contracts are dished out to the cronies of the powers-that-be.

The works minister is the longest-serving minister in the present cabinet and can trace his roots back to the premiership of the late Tun Hussein Onn.

There have been many mishaps since then that but like Teflon, nothing sticks on Samy and he managed to blame everybody including the Almighty for calamities that occurred on our highways in which innocent lives were lost.

If the same thing had occurred in Japan, the minister concerned would take a bow and apologise to the public for the mishap - and then resign immediately.

Only in this blessed country, when mishaps like the computer lab fiasco or the cracking of a highway occur, is the buck relegated to an endless merry-go-round ride with nobody taking the rap.

Malaysian culture is such that when mishaps occur, a new consultant will be appointed to look at the mistakes done by the previous consultant. In this case, I suppose the original contractors had to cut corners somewhere to reap extra profits for the company and cronies.

This is the classic case of politicians and businessmen working hand in hand to maximise ill-gotten gains at the expense of the public at large and the taxpayer's money.