KOTA KINABALU: City Hall (DBKK) is urged to show compassion and understanding when enforcing regulations considering that many families and small businesses are struggling to make ends meet.
SAPP Vice President Gee Tien Siong said the public expects a local authority that understands the people’s hardships and balances enforcement with compassion, not one that rubs salt into the wound.
He was referring to recent warning letters to owners of vehicles with outstanding traffic fines that their vehicles may be towed away.
Gee said while SAPP is not opposed to law enforcement, the public is already burdened by various federal policies lately, including the new fuel subsidy mechanism and implementation of the e-Invoice system, on top of a sluggish local economy.
“At a time like this, DBKK should demonstrate empathy instead of resorting to excessive enforcement. Vehicles obstructing traffic should certainly be towed away and long-abandoned vehicles.
“However, vehicles that people rely on every day to go to work, run their businesses, deliver goods, transport passengers and earn a living should be dealt with using discretion rather than being towed indiscriminately,” he said, in a statement.
“Don’t tow away people’s tools of livelihood. If they lose access to the vehicle they depend on to earn an income, how are they supposed to pay their outstanding fines?”Gee said the objective of enforcement should be to encourage compliance with the law, not to deprive people of their means of survival.
He said if DBKK genuinely wants to improve the rate of fine payments, it should consider practical and affordable measures such as granting a reasonable grace period, allowing instalment payments, or offering settlement discounts to make payment more affordable, as in the past, including police.
Meanwhile, Mayor Datuk Seri Dr Sabin Samitah has defended the actions of a parking attendant who issued a summons while the elderly woman was trying to make the payment via the Smart Parking app at Damai Plaza, recently.
“Preliminary findings indicate that the enforcement action complied with the existing Standard Operating Procedures,” he said, Saturday.
“Our objective is not merely to enforce the law, but to encourage compliance while maintaining public confidence in the integrity and professionalism of our officers,” Sabin said. “Nevertheless, I have directed a comprehensive review of both the incident and our enforcement procedures to ensure they remain fair, transparent, and customer-focused.” The Kepayan woman motorist, 71, is challenging DBKK Holdings Sdn Bhd to provide evidence that its staff issued a summons while the vehicle had nobody inside.
The relative of the woman, whose 16-year-old son was in the car with its engine running when the parking summons was issued said his son even argued with the attendant but the latter proceeded to issue the summons.
The summons was allegedly issued within a record 51 seconds. Daily Express had requested DBKK Holdings, the investment and commercial arm of City Hall which handles the collection of parking charges in the city, to back up its claim that nobody inside the car when the summons was issued.
Daily Express said the CCTV or video footage should determine which party was telling the truth since the time and date would be recorded on the image.
However, the firm has declined the request.
The complainant reached out to the paper saying what happened may not be an isolated case.
Daily Express had also received numerous complaints that they have been slapped with summons for being five minutes late past their paid duration of parking.
The summons would require RM30 payment if not cleared within a week and RM100 if not done so within a month.
They said it is difficult to be precise how long they would dispense with duties, especially in the banking district and urged lenience if they had been late for five or 10 minutes.
Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) also said it had received numerous complaints on the matter.