Loke: MRT feeder bus services to stay
KUALA LUMPUR: The Transport Ministry has no plans to scrap MRT feeder bus services and the announcement made by Tony Pua that e-hailing company Grab may soon replace them was just a proposal.
Transport Minister Anthony Loke who said this, clarified that the statement by Pua, who is the special officer to the Finance Minister, was not reflective of the government’s decision as his ministry has no plans to stop the feeder bus services.
“We are not cancelling the feeder bus services. That was just a proposal and it came from Tony.
“As far as the Transport Ministry is concerned, we have no plans to scrap the feeder bus service right now.
“We want to integrate with other bus services and we hope we can roll out the monthly pass soon so that all these services will be part and parcel of the public transportation system in the Klang Valley,” he told reporters at the Parliament lobby yesterday.
On the protest organised by taxi drivers in Putrajaya as a response to Pua’s announcement, Loke said anyone could protest as long as it was peaceful.
“As far as we are concerned, we respect the freedom for them to voice out their opinion as long as it’s a peaceful protest.
“There’s no problem with that,” he said.
He said although cabbies wanted the government to ban Grab, the government has made the decision to allow e-hailing services to operate and for them to be regulated.
“My political secretary has an ongoing discussion with them (taxi drivers) on how to improve and I ask the political secretary to keep engaging with associations.
“With some other associations we have very good relationship and in fact, we are encouraging them to adopt e-hailing and one particular association is developing an app for airport taxis which I will launch soon,” he added.
In Putrajaya, a group of disgruntled taxi drivers had earlier in the day demanded that Finance Minister Lim Guan Eng explain why Grab is given “preferential treatment” to provide complementary services to commuters.
“Failing which, taxi drivers will organise pickets nationwide until the rule of law and justice is served”, said Datuk Shamsubahrin Ismail, founder of Big Blue Taxi Facilities Sdn Bhd.
Shamsubahrin led the group of cabbies to the Finance Ministry to hand over a memorandum to Lim. The memo via email was sent to the ministry’s undersecretary for corporate strategy and communications Suhaili Ahmad.
Taxi company operators had expressed unhappiness over Pua’s announcement that the government will hold talks with e-hailing company Grab to provide complementary transport services to MRT users.
Pua had said the move is to help the government defray the cost of some of the public transport expenditure.