When I was in secondary school ages ago and first introduced to the laboratory, the most exciting experiment for the class was how to turn out sulphur dioxide. Which boy would ever forget the overpowering stench of the rotten egg vapour rising from test tubes?

I'm hit by the same olfactory sensation by the letters in the papers directing their flaming anger at our local councils. And this situation seems to have become part of Malaysian culture which triggers the thought: what purpose do such entities serve and, is there no end to the mounting problems whose mother and father are generally inertia and incompetence?

For the first part of the question, the answer should be surely not service to the people as the general assumption has it but to themselves. The service element went Awol when the malignant patronage system was first introduced.

For a proper answer to the second part of the question, travelling back in time would be in order.

It's early afternoon in George Town, Penang, there's sweet bugger all to do in 1964 at the Straits Times office. So I'm idly flipping the newspaper when I come across a letter which is taking offence at the neglect visited upon the old clock tower located at the junction of Light Street and Weld Quay.

The clock tower

The writer pointed out that the clock tower, a donation to the Penang public from a Chinese tycoon in the 18th century, was desperately crying out for cosmetic treatment. I jumped on my trusty metal steed and scooted off to check the object in question.

True enough. The clock tower was all that the writer had alleged, a leprous sight with the paint peeling off. On my return, I picked up the phone and called the mayor.

Mind you, at that time I was just a cadet reporter; barely cutting my teeth in my first job, but the man took the trouble to listen to me and promised without hesitation that the situation would be corrected right away.

When it was time to go home, I went around to the clock tower again just to check.

Mayor CY Choy, a member of the now defunct Labour Party - which formed the Socialist Front with Parti Socialis Rakyat Malaya (they had refused recognise Malaysia then), which is now Parti Rakyat Malaysia - was true to his word.

There were workmen there busy giving the monument its much-needed face-lift.

I've also seen the late Choy, entertaining a posse of trishaw riders who had pulled up in front of the huge white City Hall building at the Esplanade. They had sent in an emissary to ask him out to discuss some problem. He was that accessible.

I'd just collapse and die if I happened to witness something like that today. It's not just that times have changed or that the population has spiked, leaving little for politicians to spend time with the public.

It's partly due to that by mostly due to the spirit of service evaporating, replaced by a high sense of false maruah (dignity) and the golf course. And that's because paid functionaries have taken over the role of elected officials who, at the back of their minds, always knew that their fate was in the hands of the electorate.

The public was so fond of Choy that his election campaigns were managed by volunteers. He didn't have to lift a finger.

The day local elections were done away with, was the beginning of the end for true public service at the municipal level and the wasting away of real grassroots politics.

Over the years the yawning gap between the public politicians has widened as a local newspaper's recent survey showed that more than half those polled did not know their state assemblyman or member of parliament.

Bureaucrats and their appointed political collaborators, the councillors, have little time for the general public. They belong to the privileged few who have this ingrained sense of belonging to a higher caste.

However, rapid changes in this digital age demand a high degree of flexibility. And change is anathema to bureaucrats who like life to be neat and tidy, following prescribed routes.

A miniscule cog

At this point let me introduce my late father who was a government clerk from the early 1950s till his retirement in the 1970s. He commanded great respect among the squatters who were our neighbours in Ang Seng Road, Kuala Lumpur, for the simple reason that he helped them out without irritation or condescension.

He was completely oblivious to the fact that he was a miniscule cog in the mighty machine of the British Empire on which, as the proud boast went then, the sun never set, as he sat at a small desk filling in government forms under the dim bluish light cast by the carbide lamp in the thatched hovel that was our home.

The neighbours would troop in the two and threes after dinner to get the various forms completed. He was doing this out of office hours as a part of his official duty. His reward was the respect he won from the neighbours.

The situation is vastly different in this age as people don't seem to value their jobs as highly they did before when jobs were scarce in a country that was poor. They don't even have self-respect: a value like that drowned by crass materialism.

However, there are clear signs of a rising tide of opposition against the indifferent attitude of local administrations gathering strength. Indications are clear too that the Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi might score a convincing victory in the imminent elections.

If that happens, he should screw the courage to the sticking place and, do the country and himself a big favour by re-introducing local government polls to safeguard the country's future.

Work with the people, Pak Lah. Then, let's see under which rock the rotten eggs find refuge.