Speaking at the Malaysian Taxi Drivers Congress held at the Petaling Jaya Civic Center today, he urged the government to postpone licensing and regulating Uber and Grab while the issues faced by taxi drivers are not properly addressed.
“The most important issue that the government should look into is to abolish the system which requires taxi drivers to pay daily car rental fees,” he said, adding that this was a burden on many of them.
He said the rental fees put financial pressure on taxi drivers, and that there was no healthy competition between the taxi service and e-hailing services.
Rafizi added that taxi drivers should be given the same privilege as Uber and Grab, which only have to bear the cost of fuel.
If Pakatan Harapan triumphs in the next general election (GE14), he said he would ensure that the daily taxi rental fees are abolished.
“Even if we lose, I will make a scene until the government abolishes the system,” he said.
Last year, an estimated 10,000 out of 35,000 budget taxi drivers in the Klang Valley reportedly returned their vehicles as they were unable to pay the rental charges owed to their companies amid competition with ride-sharing services like Uber and Grab.
Conventional taxi drivers typically have to pay up to RM90 a day as rental for the vehicles they lease from taxi companies.
This amount is payable regardless of whether the vehicle is used, and even if the driver is unwell and unable to drive.
On April 5, a bill was tabled at the Dewan Rakyat which proposed that e-hailing services apply for licences to operate under the Commercial Vehicles Licensing Board Act (Amendment).
The bill sought to introduce an intermediation business licence to regulate e-hailing services as public vehicles.
The licence is for the business of facilitating arrangements, bookings or transactions of an e-hailing vehicle.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-tJY-c10teo&feature=youtu.be