Almost a year after the Selangor state government announced that a newly appointed concession company would take over public parking fee collection and enforcement for four local councils (PBTs) in the state, one council is still holding out on the privatisation agreement, reports The Star.
While street parking under the purview of the Subang Jaya city council (MBSJ), Shah Alam city council (MBSA) and Selayang municipal council (MPS) is now operating under the Selangor Intelligent Parking (SIP) system, the Petaling Jaya city council (MBPJ) remains independent of it.
Petaling Jaya mayor Datuk Mohamad Zahri Samingon confirmed that MBPJ still had not signed the agreement with the concessionaire, which is ITMax subsidiary Selmax, citing lack of clarity from state advisories.
“MBPJ has not signed the privatisation deal because we have requested information from the state advisory chamber. We already wrote in, but there has been no reply, and so we are waiting for the black-and-white view,” he told the publication,
Despite a verbal agreement reportedly reached during a closed-door meeting last September, Mohamad Zahri’s stand remains unchanged, that MBPJ will not sign a deal until there is an ironclad guarantee its revenue will not drop below current levels.
Last year, the mayor said the council pulled in a whopping RM13.8 million annually in parking revenue, the highest among all local councils in Selangor. Under the proposed SIP scheme, that lucrative stream would be sliced up, with 50% going to Selmax, 40% to local councils and 10% to Menteri Besar Selangor Incorporated (MBI).
Reiterating what he said last year, that the council’s main focus was to have that income remain the same or increase, Mohamad Zahri stated that MBPJ was finalising the profit-sharing percentage and would ensure that all details are clearly codified before a formal commitment is made.
MBPJ’s continued resistance to the agreement follows a severe disruption to the SIP platform caused by a cyberattack on June 30, which managed to hack into into the operator’s system and crippled parking payment services for users both inside and outside Selangor. The system came back online on July 2.
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