LETTER | Yang Amat Berhormat Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad

Greetings of peace for Ramadan.

Thank you for your kind decision to continue petrol subsidies for the rakyat.

In the run-up to GE14, the then transport minister announced a three-month moratorium on taking punitive action on vehicles with expired road taxes and insurance which affected some 10 million out of 29 million registered vehicles.

Whilst feeling perplexed, I shall make no attempt to fathom out the rationale (or the lack of it) behind the idea.

After the recent revelation by the new Finance Minister Lim Guan Eng that the national debt is about RM 1 trillion, concerned Malaysians should be thinking about how to help reduce this figure.

At the same time, the federal administration should be realistic about addressing the potential problem of petrol subsidies encouraging smuggling. Frankly, what safeguards are in place?

The age-old Malay proverb "sambil menyelam minum air" (equivalent to “killing two birds with one stone”) offers a brilliant solution.

Why not impose the prerequisite that owners must have a valid road tax and insurance cover to be eligible for petrol subsidies?

The 800 personnel to be transferred from the now-defunct Spad to JPJ and those insurance agents renting space at JPJ offices nationwide should be sufficient to process applications for petrol subsidies disbursed via smartcards after insurance cover is obtained.

These smartcards can be revalidated every year when vehicle owners renew their road taxes and insurance covers.

As all petrol stations have terminals for swiping loyalty cards and credit/debit cards, these same facilities can also capture data on the amount of petrol consumed by each vehicle owner.

Heavy petrol consumption should trigger investigations on whether the subject vehicles are involved in illegal resale, smuggling or providing transportation services such as school buses, taxis and ride-hailing.

Subsequently, if the government wishes to implement policies like subsidies or friendly loans to encourage scrapping of old vehicles, the data would be useful.

Thank you.

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