JOHOR BAHRU - It takes only five minutes to drive across that 400m stretch on the Causeway linking Malaysia and Singapore.

But for regular commuters, numbering some 150,000 daily, most of them have to wake up at 4am to queue at the Johor Bahru border checkpoint by 5am to make it through the traffic gridlock for work or business.

Relating to this is none other than Johor chief minister Datuk Onn Hafiz Ghazi, who made an impassioned plea to the Federal Government for a solution to ease the traffic congestion on the Causeway.

He brought up the matter with Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim during the Prime Minister’s one-day official visit to Singapore on Monday.

“When I accompanied the PM to Singapore, I appealed to him for something to be done to make the traffic between Johor Bahru and Singapore smoother,” he said on Tuesday.

After commuters’ morning battle to get into Singapore, the return journey is no better via the Causeway, which is among the world’s busiest land crossings.

“By the time they return to Malaysia and make it through the jam, it is already 10pm... have some sympathy for them,” Mr Onn Hafiz said at the Johor Bahru City Council.

He also said that more than 90 per cent of the pending work orders to repair the faulty facilities at the Bangunan Sultan Iskandar (BSI) Customs, Immigration and Quarantine Complex had been completed.

During the Covid-19 pandemic, there were about 1,200 pending work orders at BSI where most of the escalators and lifts were not in service, he said.

“Back then, the jurisdiction of the building fell under the Public Works Department (PWD) in Putrajaya. What does the person in charge in Putrajaya know about the happenings on the ground?

“Thankfully, with the combination of efforts, the authority was eventually given to the state PWD director.

“I am pleased to report to everyone that the pending work orders have since been reduced from 1,200 to about 100,” he added. THE STAR/ASIA NEWS NETWORK