By Xavier Kong
Though the confusion over the fare revision of taxis has been resolved in favour of the taxi drivers, Tiger still feels confusion as well as helpless mirth and shock that such a thing can happen in the first place.
Tiger is amused, shocked, disappointed, and confused.
Yes, it might be difficult to feel so many emotions at the same time, but is it really that difficult? All one has to do is look at the most recent fiasco, which is the revision of taxi, train, and express bus fares.
There was a fair bit of drama over the weekend, where there was a fare revision for public transport services announced on March 19, 2015, and noted as effective immediately.
Of course, this is good news for taxi drivers in particular, whose rates, which should have been revised every five years, have not had a revision since 2009.
However, two days later, the Cabinet had come to a decision to delay the implementation of the new fares, citing a clash with the implementation of the goods and services tax (GST), which would have been tough for the rakyat.
Muhyiddin Yassin
As such, Deputy Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin had requested the Land Public Transport Commission (Spad) to delay the implementation of the fare revision.
Of course, this was met with bursts of outrage from the taxi drivers, who have remained defiant, especially those who have already gone through the time-consuming process of adjusting their meters.
The fare revision was apparently not the best kept secret, and there were those who had been ready for the announcement with already adjusted meters. There were even promises made to remove taxis from the streets should the implementation be delayed.
While the end result is that the fares for taxis are increased and express bus fares are delayed until further notice, the fact remains that this is a level of miscommunication that threw an entire segment of the public transport system of Malaysia into turmoil for the duration of the issue.
It was brought up that the documents approving the implementation of the fare hikes had carried the signature of Najib Abdul Razak, showing that he, as prime minister of Malaysia, had received, acknowledged, and agreed to the contents of that particular proposal.
However, is it not true that the prime minister is also part of the Cabinet, which is the body that came up with the decision to request a delay in the implementation of the new fare rates?
The fact also remains that the government had flip-flopped on the decision, first announcing an implementation, then making a request for a delay two days after the decision was made.
To Tiger’s knowledge, flip-flopping is for pancakes, not for decisions that affect the lives of so many Malaysians.
Should the decision not have been deliberated properly, with all avenues explore and verified, before it was approved? Should not the clash with the implementation of GST have been considered beforehand?
Why was all this not considered?
All right, maybe this is Tiger not being fair — to pancakes.
Pancakes, at the very least, see the flipping to make sure both sides are cooked properly, which is a situation currently not seen in this entire fare revision fiasco.
With the flip-flopping happening after the decision was made official, Tiger believes this more alike to flipping a pancake after it had already been burnt, which just leaves a bad taste and a sour expression on everyone.
At least, at the end of all this, taxi drivers in Malaysia have now received their long-awaited fare revision.
Here’s hoping that the taxi service will also see an improvement in service and attitude, and that this is not used as a loophole for the taxi mafiosi (yes, that is the plural form of mafioso) to gouge passengers further.
That is a bad image for Malaysia, considering what some of these “made men” do to both tourists and locals alike.
Tiger sincerely hopes that taxi drivers do understand that, at the end of the day, they are providing a service for which the passenger is the customer.
Be it the rakyat, or tourists from foreign lands, some semblance of proper decorum should be observed.
At the same time, Tiger hopes that the government will take this fiasco as a lesson learned to do the flipping (deliberating) before the pancake is burnt.
There is definitely enough on everyone’s plate with GST coming up and more drama is not what the rakyat needs.
GRRRRR!!!
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