‘My Sikap’ project set to identify those with outstanding parking compounds

SIBU: The pilot project ‘My Sikap’ is being used by Miri City Council ( MCC) to track down vehicle owners who have yet to settle their compounds with the council.

According to Assistant Minister of Local Government Datu Dr Penguang Manggil, the application – used on a case-to- case basis – not only detects owners of outstanding parking fees, but also those fi ned for traffic offences such as illegal parking.

“The counci l ( MCC) has developed My Sikap to do the checking with JPJ (Road Transport Department) on the registration of vehicles before issuing reminders to those who have yet to settle their parking compounds. They ( MCC) would refer or get the information from JPJ about the ownership of the vehicles,” he told The Borneo Post when contacted yesterday.

Penguang, who is Marudi assemblyman, was asked if the local councils in Sarawak were linked via any system with JPJ to prevent vehicle owners, who had not settled their parking fi nes or compounds, from renewing road tax.

He observed that there were some cases in Peninsular Malaysia where the car owners who did not pay settle the compounds imposed by the local authorities for certain number of times, could be barred from renewing their road tax – due to some kind of mechanism that linked the councils with the JPJ.

“The application ( My Sikap) is not linked up to JPJ yet. We have been thinking about this. Actually there is a ‘hiccup’, in that JPJ is a federal department. So, we have to really sit down and put up a good proposal to JPJ before we could implement this ( My Sikap).

“However, I think there’s a possibility of linking up with JPJ in the future – not only on this (matter), but also in other (areas) such as assessment rates,” he said, believing that My Sikap might also be introduced to other councils in the state in the future.

In relation to this, Penguang emphasised on the need for everyone to be ICT- savvy and support the government’s policy of going digital.

“So, we are looking at a lot of applications to be incorporated into the local authority electronic system ( eLA). We are entering Phase II – we have rolled out several applications under Phase I (eLA1).

“I have told them (councils) to look into other applications to be incorporated into eLA2, in tandem with the government’s move to go digital,” he disclosed.

Citing MCC statistics, Penguang said as at Oct 31 this year, 156 vehicle owners had been charged in court for parking offences, while 4,982 letters of demand had been issued to the offenders to settle their parking compounds.