Isa stays, business as usual in Spad, says minister

The arrest and investigation of Land Public Transport Commission (Spad) acting chairperson Isa Samad does not disrupt the commission’s operations, said Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department Nancy Shukri.

She said Isa is a non-executive chairperson in the commission. If he is absent in a meeting, the other commissioners present would simply appoint an interim chairperson among themselves for each meeting.

“As you can see, we are doing our work as usual. It doesn’t disrupt our normal task,” Nancy (photo) told reporters at a press conference in Kuala Lumpur today.

She also stressed that as far as Spad is concerned, Isa is still the commission’s acting chairperson, as he has yet to be charged with any crime.

The appointment of a Spad chairperson is also the sole prerogative of the prime minister, she said.

Earlier today, Nancy officiated a Spad event where 300 individual taxi licenses were issued to taxi drivers as part of the Taxi Industry Transformation Program (TITP). In addition, 88 eligible drivers also received RM5,000 each for them to purchase their vehicles.

The TITP program entails a shift from the previous practice of issuing taxi licenses to companies, which was criticised as being prone to rent-seeking behaviour as licensees may simply lease the license to interested drivers.

[More to follow]