Power restored at Johor land checkpoint after hours-long outage disrupts Malaysia-Singapore travel

When contacted by CNA, Johor works, transportation, and infrastructure executive committee chairman Mohamad Fazli Mohamad Salleh said that the power disruption had been due to the maintenance work conducted by TNB and a power trip experienced by the power-supply generator.   

“We just finished meeting to discuss proposed improvements, still discussing. Can only confirm that e-gates have resumed operations fully,” said Mr Fazli.

Separately, state assemblyman for the Stulang constituency – an area adjacent to the CIQ complex – Andrew Chen said that while maintenance work conducted by TNB is “unavoidable”, he implored that such works be conducted during the off-peak period so as to avoid inconveniencing the public.

“For me in (the) future, if let’s say there’s any maintenance needed, time (allocated) should be 12am to 4am, not from 8pm to 4am. (It) should be (during the) off-peak (period) so that we do not disrupt traffic flow, especially for Malaysians going to work,” said Mr Chen.

Further, the Democratic Action Party (DAP) politician said that back-up generators must be on standby mode when maintenance work is carried out “in case the power supply is lost”.

“When the maintenance work is done, power supply must be resumed so nothing is interrupted. We cannot let these maintenance work disrupt the process of immigration and customs,” said Mr Chen, who led a state task force between 2018-2020 to ease congestion at the Causeway.

He added: “All of us, me, the chief minister and government officials have worked hard to ensure that the congestion issues have been minimised recently, and we hope that incidents like this do not reoccur as it impacts livelihoods.”

Mr Onn Hafiz, the chief minister, has made the efficiency of the Johor checkpoints a key priority of his state administration. Since he came to power, he has made numerous visits to the Johor checkpoints, sometimes in the wee hours of the morning.

In an interview with CNA earlier this year, the Machap state assemblyman stressed that the efficiency level of immigration facilities on the Malaysian side of the Causeway must be raised to 100 per cent in order to alleviate congestion at the land border.