BUKIT MERTAJAM – More than 1,200 tour buses have been forced to be offloaded by bus operators in peninsular Malaysia’s northern states as they face difficulty in settling loans to credit companies for the vehicles’ monthly insurance payments.
In revealing this, chairman of the North Zone Tour Bus Operators Coalition, Ahmad Ruslan, said credit companies do not provide a moratorium like banking institutions do, causing some operators to sell their buses and be declared bankrupt.
“Some of the tour bus operators now sell cake, burgers, and wash dishes at restaurants to survive”, he said.
The bus operators today lodged police reports against five ministries – the Ministry of Transport, the Ministry of Finance, the Ministry of Tourism, the Ministry of Domestic Trade and Consumer Affairs, and the Ministry of Housing and Local Government.
The coalition is the second bus association to lodge police reports against five ministries for allegedly not caring about their fate of tour bus operators who were badly affected by Covid-19.
Ahmad said his group has been trying to meet with various ministries and agencies since last March, but they were turned down.
He gave the government until next Monday to respond, or they will hold a street protest with all bus operators throughout the country
“What is regrettable is that there is no assistance or allocation to the tour bus operators in the 2021 Budget last week.
“This is despite the tourism sector being one of the biggest contributors to the national economy,” he said when met at the Seberang Perai Tengah District Police Headquarters.
Ahmad said the tour bus insurance policy also does not protect bus operators during natural disasters such as Covid-19.
An operator of the tour bus company, Aziz Zainal Abidin, 54, said he owns eight buses and has to pay monthly insurance amounting to RM72,000 a month to the credit company. – The Vibes, November 11, 2020
