DAILOGUE WITH SPAD A MAJOR SUCCESS

About 40 representatives from various tourism NGOs were assembled at the SPAD headquarters at One Sentral yesterday morning to take part in a dailogue with Tan Sri Syed Hamid Albar, Chairman of the Land Public Transport Commission (SPAD) and several senior officials.

In his opening speech Tan Sri Syed Hamid welcomed the move by the Malaysia Tourism Federation to be engaged in a continuous dailogue with SPAD and this he hoped will be carried out on a sustainable basis in order that we can further improve the land transport system in the country. SPAD doors will be opened to any suggestion to improve the public transport system and encourage the use of them by the general public.

He added that all license holders of public service vehicles, goods vehicles and tourism vehicles are required to re-register with the Land Public Transport Commission between 1st April and 30 September 2011. The re-registration is a requirement as stipulated in the Commercial Vehicle Licensing Board Amendment Act 2010. The ultimate objective of the re-registration is to regulate the industry to improve the land public transport in Malaysia for the benefit of the Rakyat.

With this exercise, the Commission will be able to identify the current status of licensees. This will help the Commission take action against inactive and problematic licensees. The re-registration exercise is applicable to license holders within the Malaysian Peninsular only.

Failure of licensees to re-register will result in the revocation of the license. All licensees are advised to re-register as soon as possible so that all licenses can be processed within the stipulated time.

Any enquiries pertaining to this matter and any other enquiries can made to the toll free line of SPAD at 1800-88-9600 or the official website www.spad.gov.my

NGO representatives raised a wide ranging issues on licensing matters during the 2 hour session and they were extremely happy with the answers given by SPAD.

Dato Setia Dr Joshua Tan, President of MTF in his opening remarks thanked Tan Sri Syed Hamid Albar for having spent the entire morning with members of the industry to discuss various issues relating to tourism land transport matters and said this augurs well for the future of the industry. MTF he said will continue to support any move by SPAD to imporve the public transport system of the country.