Mahathir refused to adapt to the times — Najib

KUALA LUMPUR: Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak has hit out at Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad over the latter’s pledge to review e-hailing services such as Grab if the opposition wins the 14th general election in an attempt to gain support from taxi drivers.

The Prime Minister said this was yet another evidence of how Dr Mahathir refused to adapt to the times or understand how technological advances benefited Malaysians, completely disregarding the benefits of e-hailing for the people.

“For those of you who are voting for the first time, you probably did not experience the years of Mahathir. This is typical Mahathirism for you – it’s either his way or the highway. With tolls.

“Just look at what he did to Proton. The national carmaker could have been a top multinational carmaker that is profitable and one that Malaysians can be proud of. Instead, it constantly needed government assistance and taxpayers money to compete,” he said on his Facebook and Twitter accounts.

“Do we want to go back to the old days or do we want to move forward, as a nation, to greater heights?” the Barisan Nasional chairman asked.

Najib said the right approach to e-hailing services was to incorporate their benefits for the people while at the same time assisting taxi drivers to embrace new technologies and helping them to buy new vehicles.

He went on to list the numerous measures taken by his administration to help taxi drivers. Since 2012, he said, the government had given substantial assistance to taxi drivers nationwide, the most recent being the 1Malaysia Taxi Assistance Card and automatic approval for 1Malaysia People’s Aid ( BR1M).

He said the government had also helped taxi drivers with initiatives such as the Teksi Rakyat 1Malaysia ( TR1MA), the taxi trade-in scheme, personal insurance as well as an RM200million allocation via Bank Simpanan Nasional to allow taxi drivers to obtain loans to buy new vehicles.

Najib said the government reviewed taxi fares in 2015 and launched the Taxi Industry Transformation Programme ( TITP) in 2016.

“In tabling the 2018 Budget, I announced that an RM5,000 grant for the purchase of new vehicles will be given to drivers who wish to convert to the e-hailing service,” he said. — Bernama