THE Transport Ministry will look into the order to stop road tax renewals for private vehicles of 2,000cc and above at post offices in Sarawak, Sabah, Langkawi and Penang, effective yesterday.

Its minister, Anthony Loke, said a meeting will be held with Road Transport Department (RTD) director-general Shaharuddin Khalid this week to see if the directive was viable.

“The instruction was from the RTD, not the Transport Ministry. I understand that the RTD did so to reduce the loss of government revenue as there are vehicles registered in Peninsular Malaysia renewing their road tax in Sabah and Sarawak,” he said after launching the Miri DAP headquarters today.

Loke said the RTD had found that owners of such vehicles from the peninsula were taking advantage of cheaper road tax rates in Sarawak and Sabah.

At the same time, the interests of the people in the two states must also be taken into account as they need places to renew their road tax, as there were areas in both states where there were no RTD offices.

Pos Malaysia’s recent announcement to suspend road tax renewals for vehicles of 2,000cc and above in post offices in Sarawak, Sabah, Labuan and Langkawi, following instructions from the RTD effective September 1, had gone viral on social media and received negative reactions from the public.

Netizens, especially from Sarawak’s interior, said the move would burden the people, many of whom would now need to drive more than three hours to an RTD office to renew their road tax.

Separately, on a proposal to implement the Vehicle Entry Permit (VEP) at the Malaysia-Brunei border, Loke said this was still being studied.

On April 25, Shaharuddin had said that the proposal to implement the VEP on all foreign vehicles at the Customs, Immigration and Quarantine Complex at the Malaysia-Brunei border would be forwarded to the Transport Ministry. – Bernama, September 2, 2019.