Johor Bahru CIQ Immigration Complex is Poorly Planned

No duh! I mean, anyone who has followed the narrow, winding road up and down the CIQ hill can see how convoluted and unintuitive the design is. Seriously, too much money and no application of common sense – typical of big government projects.

I suggest that the way to ‘solve’ the issue ifs to upgrade the former immgiration checkpoint just at the start of the Causeway, then demolish the useless CIQ.

From The Star 14 June 2011:

Solve JB crawl chaos

WE are perplexed and saddened by the problems of the never ending queues, jams, and time consuming clearance at the Immigration check points in Johor Baru particularly during peak hours, on weekends and during festive and holiday seasons.

These have been highlighted by numerous travellers since the opening of the ‘New’ CIQ complex in 2008 but it has not been addressed satisfactorily by the authorities.

The cause of the problems has been fully explained by people like V. Kumar (The Star, June 9) in which he zeroed in on the slow clearing systems not helped by severely under manned counters.

We also feel that the CIQ complex is badly planned and does not facilitate speedy clearance.

This has caused a lot of problems to travellers, visitors, workers and even investors (and/or potential investors in the Iskandar Development area) etc. Just imagine over hundreds of thousand people trapped every day in these jams and you multiply that by the number of hours each of these people have to queue each day!

When will the authorities wake up before the CIQ in JB become infamously known as the worst managed Immigration entry point in this region!

We simply have no business wasting travellers’ time by our mismanagement/bad planning/inadequate facilities and ineffective procedures or corrective actions (looks more like the lack of it).

Even more disheartening is the badly introduced/ill-timed biometric finger scanning procedures that have resulted in total chaos.

Didn’t the authorities have a test run to study the impact for this procedure and how it will further compound the clearing/waiting time to an already bad and unresolved problem?

Travellers had to spend five to six hours due to the finger scanning procedures during the holiday seasons.

Even up to Sunday morning one of my friends spent three hours at Immigration, even though she was at the checkpoint at 7am.

We would like to appeal to our Prime Minister to have his walkabout at the immigration check points in JB during peak hours.

Can our Yang Berhormat observe the queue involved (up to 5-6 hours) that the poor travellers have to face and how much they are suffering and unjustifiably held to ransom by a bad system/management etc.?

Can we still rely on the Immigration authorities as they have not been able to solve the problem after so many years.

And they even recently said that the introduction of the ‘Biometric System cannot be blamed for the massive jams’.

We beg your pardon? What then is causing the increased clearing/queuing time?

One must, in our national interest, look seriously at the damage to our image, credibility, economy and downtime with this avoidable catastrophe that has caused severe hardship to a lot of people.

No cost is too big if you look at the cost of not solving the problem. And please, no more denials, excuses or delays.

LAMLIM,

Kuala Lumpur.

See also previous CIQ coverage at this post which has a roundup of all earlier posts.

Letter Complaining About JB Customs (CIQ) Lousy Service Standards

Malaysia boleh!

I still remember the massive annoyance of, and my exploding RAGE at, Malaysia’s half-baked ‘upgrade’ of the immigration complex.

Previous CIQ coverage:

• Impose law and order on the JB Custom & Immigration Quarantine Complex

• Pedestrians Have it Tough at CIQ

• Datuk Shahrir Abdul Samad to Propose to Cabinet, Reopen Old Customs Checkpoint at Causeway

• Mad Rush to Board Bus at CIQ

• The Star: CIQ Teething woes to go up before Cabinet two years already, this excuse had better not be used this time round!)

• Datuk Shahrir Abdul Samad to Propose to Cabinet, Reopen Old Customs Checkpoint at Causeway

From The Star Opinion 9 June 2011:

Work flaw cause of jams

THE citizens of both Malaysia and Singapore greeted news of the opening of the new CIQ in Johor Baru with anticipation and hope.

When the day finally came we were awed by its scale and presence. However, since its opening there had been one nightmare after another.

I go through the Johor Baru CIQ daily during peak hours in the morning and in the evening. Since its opening in December 2008 until now, only 30% (or fewer) of the counters are open during peak hours.

Never have I seen all the counters open, even when the queue snakes all the way to the Singapore side of the Causeway. Too many times I have been caught in a traffic jam getting into Malaysia, only to find that it’s due to this.

The only time there isn’t any congestion at the JB CIQ is when the traffic gets bad on the Singapore side (i.e. not many cars are coming through to Malaysia).

The immigration counters are run like a normal 9am to 5pm office environment with no plans for handling peak hour, weekend, festive/holiday traffic.

Many times I have seen immigration officers just switch off the lights and walk out of the counters at the end of their shift, to the bewilderment of those in the cars, who are left standing high and dry.

There isn’t even an overlapping handover period between the officers in different shifts, the way the Singapore immigration officers do.

The Customs personnel also have a tendency to close all lanes and only open one or two lanes out of a dozen or so, with one officer stationed to check thousands of cars. This adds to the horrendous jams on the Causeway.

Why did the Malaysian Government spend so much money to build so many lanes and counters when these car lanes and counters are closed perpetually?

The situation has become so bad that these lanes have become permanent parking lots for the officers who work at the CIQ complex; you can see this is most prevalent on the way out of Malaysia.

To make matters worse, now there is a system whereby all visitors need to have their fingerprints scanned prior to entering and leaving the country. The reason given is national security.

While smugglers and terrorists just walk through the porous borders to the north of the peninsula and in Sabah and Sarawak, we, the genuine travellers and tourists are subjected to security initiatives that cause us to queue for six hours to just get our passports stamped.

V. KUMAR,

Singapore.

Don’t forget the illegals entering through Kota Tinggi.

Impose law and order on the JB Custom & Immigration Quarantine Complex

My gripe about my experience which happened today, with the new Custom & Immigration Quarantine Complex (Bangunan Sultan Iskandar) in Johor Bahru that opened today, that was written up in word form today, and sent to Malaysia Today and Malaysiakini today. Promptness, the great advantage of New Media!

I doubt the relevant authorities will be reading Malaysia Today or Malaysiakini, however. They never do except to bash them.

From Malaysia Today:

  

Impose law and order on the JB Custom & Immigration Quarantine Complex

On Tuesday, the 16th of December 2008, the new Custom & Immigration Quarantine Complex (Bangunan Sultan Iskandar) began operations in Johor Bahru. As one of the thousands of Malaysians who commutes to work in Singapore daily, I was a firsthand witness to the new system.

Overall, I must say that I am impressed by the facilities of the CIQ Complex – and more so by the security and verification measures that the old customs system sorely lacked.

However, I have one very serious gripe that I hope the CIQ Complex management will immediately seek to rectify.

Once a bus passenger clears the passport check, the next process is to head back down to the bus waiting area to try and catch a bus. On a workday morning, this step is literally a descent into madness.

If any reader has ever taken a bus from Malaysia to Singapore at the old customs complex, they’ll know exactly what I’m talking about. Just like always, the bus crowd becomes a literal rabid mob!