RM14.3 million worth of unused driving licences wasted by JPJ

An audit report on the Road Transport Department (JPJ) has uncovered a loss worth RM14.38 million related to the Malaysian driving licence (LLM) and its card printing services.

The Auditor-General’s Report 2021 Series 2 stated that this particular scenario happened due to 'inadequate supervision of the regulations and agreements by JPJ', as reported by Malaysia Now. And to make things worse, it's public money.

Over 1.8 million LLM cards left unused

The bulk of this wastage comes in the form of over 1.83 million LLM cards that were left unused, which was worth RM14.23 million. The rest of its were not imposing penalties for service level agreement (SLA) violations that amounted close to RM150,000.

A proposal by the auditor-general mentioned that the usage of LLM cards should be monitored constantly by JPJ to avoid any further wastage in the future. This should also be applied towards imposing immediate penalties towards the contractor should there be any non-compliance matters.

In other news, Anthony Loke stated that the government is looking at a yearly saving of around RM96 million in regards to the switch to digital licences from physical road tax stickers as well as driving licences. For those of you who missed the big news, private vehicles will no longer need to display their road taxes.