New regulations and identifying area of improvement between e hailing and taxi companies in this country are part and parcel of the Government policies to provide a fair grounds for both segment to strive and to ensure service to the general public is not compromised. Image source: Malaysiakini
In 1981, the Malaysia Incorporated Policy was introduced to encourage the close cooperation between the public and private sectors whereby both sectors act and operate within a “Malaysian Company”.
In this policy, both private & public is to work together where the private sector upholds the commercial and economic activities, while the public sector draws up major policies, identify the direction and provides the specialised supporting services which are conducive to the success of businesses.
In other words, the Government suppose to work towards creating a conducive business environment for business investors and corporations to do their business in Malaysia and the business investors and corporations in return to provide employment to the locals, create a healthy foreign export (that will bring more foreign exchange) and in the end, make enough profit for these investors & corporations to pay the Government, various types of taxes which will be then be used for further development.
In summary – the Government should not make things difficult for anyone to do business with last minute changes to policies; additional road blocks and more importantly should not be meddling with the daily operations & directions of a business.
This is what was going through my mind when I read this:-
E-hailing drivers have two new requirements to fulfil if they want to be on the road from this Saturday, prompting concerns of a rush to meet these additional conditions before the deadline.
He said e-hailing operators would not have problems printing out the EVP for their drivers “but the drivers will have problems picking up the EVP from their respective companies in such short notice”.
As for the conversion to AH, Chong said drivers would have to go through the process of filling up forms and submitting them to JPJ.
“This is another time-consuming procedure, with less than five days to do so, ” he said.
“Many drivers who have already gotten their PSV licence complained to us they were still waiting for the issuance of EVP, which has to be applied from each e-hailing company should a driver work for multiple platforms,” he said.
“Why is the authority taking so long to issue it?”
On the government’s announcement requiring drivers changing their vehicle category to AH, Ng cautioned that such a last-minute flip-flop decision may cause another round of shortage of drivers come Saturday.
(Source)
Understandably new requirements related to e-hailing sector in this country was introduced to set an equal playing level after a number of protests by the taxi drivers & taxi associations since last year.
Of course, the popularity rise of e-hailing companies is helped very much by poor service & scam by some taxi drivers. There have been more complaints on taxi services in this country than e-hailing so far.
But then again, the new policies & regulations imposed should be followed with speedier processing and reasonable time to allow those who need to comply with these new regulations to get things done.
It is the same case with enforcements where there are enough laws to handled the various violation of the law and ensure the tight protection of the nature and rules of law. But often violation of law happens because there is a lack of enforcement (either due to lack of resources or corruption)
In the case of the 2 new regulations that is impacting e-hailing drivers – the deadlines set needs to be correspond with a realistic and efficient facilitation on part of the Government. Isn’t this at the end of day, forms part and parcel of a Malaysia Incorporated?