CVLB licences to be processed monthly — Loke

KUCHING: All applications for land transportation commercial licences will be dealt with on monthly basis starting next month, says Minister of Transport Anthony Loke.

He acknowledged that there has been some delay and murmurs among the public why it took several months for CVLB to approve the commercial licences in Sarawak.

He explained that the delay was because the board of directors could not hold a meeting following the resignation of the previous CVLB Sarawak chairman after the general election.

“On the other hand we (the new federal government) has not appointed a new chairman. To resolve this issue without further delay, I have sought for approval from the Prime Minister to appoint an acting chairman, who is Sarawak JPJ director, to chair the board meeting.

“Following the appointment of an acting chairman, we have resolved all the backlogs, whereby nearly all new applications had been processed and approved,” he told a press conference after giving away the offer letter of approval to the successful applicants here yesterday.

Loke said the CVLB Sarawak special meeting was held for two days to process all the backlogs before they approved 755 applications.

On behalf of the Ministry, he asked for apology from all who had been affected over the delay.

“It is not the fault of CVLB Sarawak. It’s not that they did not want to hold a meeting but we have not appointed the chairman of CVLB.

“That is why the meeting could not be held. Today, I come to show our sincerity to resolve this issue.

“The delay is very much regretted,” he said.

Loke assured that beginning next month, there will be no more backlogs because the monthly meeting would be held as usual.

On the appointment of new CVLB Sarawak chairman, he needs to get the approval from the Prime Minister and therefore he could not tell when it will be done.

He said there is no dateline to that and while waiting for the appointment of a new chairman, the acting chairman would be chairing the meeting, which is normally held on the second week of the month.

It is believed that CVLB Sarawak received an average of 1000 applications for commercial licences a year, mostly related to lorry.

Loke said the chairman of CVLB Sarawak is not necessarily a politician, but assured that he is going to be a Sarawakian.

Puncak Borneo Member of Parliament Willie Mongin and Padungan assemblyman Wong King Wei were also present at the event.