Adopt cabbies in bid to end tiff, e-hailing drivers urged
Loke: We don’t want the two parties to prolong animosity
KUALA LUMPUR: Operators of e-hailing services should “adopt” taxi drivers if they want to resolve the prevailing animosity between them, says Transport Minister Anthony Loke.
He said he was making a personal appeal as he did not want them to prolong the tiff.
“We don’t want the two to continue with this kind of environment where they treat each other as enemies and competitors.
“I think it’s time for all operators to work together, and at the ministry level, we hope e-hailing can adopt taxi drivers,” he said when launching the country’s latest local e-hailing service provider named “diffride” yesterday.
Loke cited the example of diffride’s offer of a flat rate of RM5 for its drivers as a way to attract taxi drivers to switch to e-hailing.
Although aware of grouses raised by taxi drivers, he said there were no plans by the government to restrict the entry of e-hailing service providers into the public transport industry.
“We decided in early July not to stop or curb the entry of e-hailing services in line with the global services trend.
“The people want this as an option and we are heeding their request,” he said.
On regulating the e-hailing service industry, Loke said it would be subjected to the Land Public Transport (Amendment) Act 2017 and the Commercial Vehicles Licensing Board (Amendment) Act 2017.
However, he said both industry players were given a year to comply.
“This will allow us to monitor them and the level of service they provide,” he said.
There are presently 10 e-hailing service providers with some 300,000 drivers of whom 70,000 are registered.
Earlier, Loke rejected the offer of two smartphones which were presented to him on stage by the organisers.
He politely turned down the offer of the Huawei P20 and Huawei Nova 3i mobile phones, worth almost RM4,000, from diffride, telling the official: “I’m sorry I can’t accept this. I’m sure it is worth more than RM500.”
Loke told reporters later that he would not accept gifts in the course of his work.
“Just invite me, and I will come to launch events,” he said.
On June 8, Prime Minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad announced a no-gift policy for ministers and their political secretaries. He said only flowers and food were permitted.
Meanwhile, diffride chief executive officer Hannah Yong said the company planned to recruit some 6,000 drivers by year-end to cater to 500,000 passengers in the Klang Valley.
She said passengers would be charged RM5 for the first 5km with further charges to be based on the time and distance travelled.