Cabbies blast Spad for MCMC's refusal to ban Uber, Grabcar apps

A taxi group has blamed the Land Public Transport Commission (Spad) for the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission's (MCMC) refusal to ban ride-sharing applications from Uber and Grabcar.

This comes with Deputy Communications and Multimedia Minister Jailani Johari saying that ride-sharing applications themselves do not violate the law and that taxi issues are not under the commission's jurisdiction.

Klang Valley Taxi Drivers action committee coordinator Kamarudin Mohd Hussain hit out at Spad for not lodging a complaint with MCMC.

"MCMC cannot ban the applications until Spad informs the MCMC that they are being misused.

"Many outside quarters are taking advantage of Spad's stupidity," Kamarudin told Malaysiakini when asked to respond to Jailani's comment to Parliament.

Spad 'doesn't know' how to work

Kamarudin also criticised Spad for not upholding the government's call to safeguard the welfare of taxi drivers.

"The government has already told Spad to take care of our welfare, but Spad doesn't know how to do its work. It says the matter (ride-sharing applications) fall outside its jurisdiction," he said.

He also urged Spad to disclose the statistics on the action it had taken against Uber and GrabCar drivers.

Taxi drivers have complained that their livelihood are being impacted by the advent of ride-sharing applications and have called for them to be banned.

The same action committee last month gathered some 500 taxi drivers in a protest at Padang Merbok and called for the applications to be outlawed.

Spad has since responded by conducting a survey, from which it said 70.3 percent out of 45,008 respondents want ride-sharing applications to be regulated and legalised.

The result does not bode well for the call by taxi drivers for ride-sharing applications to be banned.

The survey results have also been unflattering to taxi drivers, with 89.1 percent of the respondents complaining that taxi drivers overcharge. -Mkini