KUCHING, Feb 12: Instead of digitalising the display of road tax, why not reduce road tax and return all revenues collected by Road Transport Department (JPJ) to Sarawak?
Parti Bumi Kenyalang (PBK) president Voon Lee Shan said Transport Minister Anthony Loke Siew Fook’s idea of no more display of road tax stickers on private vehicles would allow the government to save lots of money as it does not need to issue road tax stickers but only receipts for payments made by motor vehicle owners.
However, he said such a policy is not helping the people to alleviate their financial problems and neither will the policy help automobile businesses.
“What citizens want is to have the road tax be reduced as road tax imposed at the moment is very high and many vehicle owners are not able to pay the road tax.
“For this reason, we often hear that there are cases of fake road tax stickers or discs being used or sold in the market.
“No road tax should be collected from motorcycles and a reduction of at least 50 per cent of the current road tax to be paid to the government is sought to help Sabahans and Sarawakians for motor vehicles because the economy is yet to recover from the tough times of Covid-19,” he said in a statement today.
Voon further said the 50 per cent reduction for road tax for motor vehicles in Sabah and Sarawak is justified given the poor quality of roads in Sabah and Sarawak.
He also said it is timely that the federal government returns all revenue which was collected through JPJ over the decades to the Sarawak government so that Sarawak can control and use the revenue to develop its roads.
“At the moment, Sarawak is at the mercy of the federal government to complete its Pan Borneo Highway and other roads. The quality and safety of this Pan Borneo Highway needs to be re-evaluated as there are too many accidents on this road.
“It is timely that all powers of the JPJ be returned to Sarawak too so that Sarawak can manage this department and control revenues collected by this department,” he added. — DayakDaily
