Road Transport Department denies officers involved in ‘flying licence’ syndicate

KUALA LUMPUR – The Road Transport Department (RTD) has denied the involvement of its officers in a “flying licence” syndicate as claimed in a viral post on Twitter.

RTD director-general Datuk Zailani Hashim said the owner of the Twitter account had shared a screenshot of an Instagram account bearing the name “Smart Driving Academy” believed to be offering a service to get a driver’s licence for a low fee without having to attend classes and driving tests.

“This modus operandi is often used by syndicates through the social media platform by advertising the ‘flying licence’ service, besides using a picture of the Malaysian Driving Licence (LLM) to convince the public to make payments, before going missing.

“The statement accompanying the screenshot also stated that the Smart Driving Academy conducted the activity with the involvement of top officers in RTD, and the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC),” he said in a statement issued last night.

As such, he said RTD had taken action by carrying out an investigation with the cooperation of MACC, police, Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission and Cyber Security to detect the owners of the social media accounts running such syndicate.

He said numerous approaches were also implemented by RTD to curb the involvement of its staff from engaging in such activities.

“Among them is the initiative to develop a system which makes it compulsory to verify the ID of the supervisor or senior officer before any transaction to issue an LLM is done, besides monitoring and auditing under ISO 37001 Anti-Bribery Management System.

“The RTD stresses that it will never compromise with any form of misconduct, especially involving its staff, with regard to integrity, abuse of power and corruption, specifically involving the ‘flying licence’ activity as claimed by the owner of the Twitter account,” he said.

At the same time, he reminded the public not to be easily influenced by any such offers on social media, which were clearly against the law. – Bernama, January 29, 2022