Are you from the Borneo side of Malaysia? Do you want to renew your road tax online and save money and time? If you are, continue reading… If not, you can leave.
Before I start, let me clarify that I am lazy to go to town lurking around for a parking spot for my car. Let me also clarify that I feel that waiting for turns is a waste of time, especially when you have better options like doing the same business online. And please don’t be retarded by saying I am one of those jerks which like to cut queue, because I don’t. If I’m waiting in line, I’ll be patient enough to do my time, but it does piss the hell out of me if someone did cut the queue, and hence why I don’t practice queue cutting myself.
So, when the Malaysian government decided they should go e-Government. I was one of the few whom was very receptive. I actually embraced the whole idea, by doing most of my transactions online. I can say that I hardly ever step foot in the bank or any government office nowadays. All I do is dial them up on the phone, or send them an email, and their response so far has been fantastic. Last year, when I did my tax return and I miss-spelled something, an email from me in the middle of the night was replied within hours, and I managed to join the thousands of Malaysians to do their tax return online. I guess, from that point onwards, I trusted e-Government services.
Today, I decided to skip the part where I needed to scout for parking, the part where I needed to fork out a few ringgit for parking, and also skip the part where I am required to wait patiently for my number to be called out because I decided that I want to try out JPJ’s MyEG online road tax renewal service. I’ve read that Headsteadi was reasonably satisfied with their services, and well, that was good enough for me.
So, I followed the instructions on the MyEG website to renew my road tax which would expire in a month. I selected Sarawak/Sabah in the column for state, and keyed in my IC number, as well as my address and vehicle number. I scanned the sum I needed to pay, and it was RM80.75. I didn’t bother about it, until…
I have already selected the “SUBMIT PAYMENT” button, and realized that I am charged RM70 for my road tax! That’s the Peninsular Malaysia road tax rate! Sarawak vehicles only pay RM56, and I am paying RM70!! I thought it was a mistake and that something could be done to recover my lost RM14, and so… without further of due, I called the MyEG hotline and requested for an explanation, and probably a refund. (click the photo below for a larger view)
The explanation I got disappointed me. It appears that regardless of where you use the car, or where the car is registered to, you need to pay RM70. It wasn’t a mistake, and the officer in-charge said that a local JPJ office will send out my road tax sticker so that I’d get the local edition.
I think, my jaw dropped when I received the answer, and I had a huge sense of discrimination. How can I pay more when I am suppose to pay less? Come on, roads in the peninsular are HIGHWAYS… ours in Sarawak are NO-WAY. We deserve cheaper rates! But yeah, I didn’t vent my anger towards the officer for the mistake, but I repeatedly asked him to clarify the matter with me, until I was sure it wasn’t a mistake. After all, he is just doing his job, and it would be pointless to blame him anyway. Anyway, miraculously, the MyEG road tax renewal website wasn’t accessible after my call.
So guys, if you want to renew your road tax, and you are using your car in Sabah and Sarawak… you might as well take time to go to the JPJ office or your ‘runner’ from your preferred bank because an extra RM14 is way to high to pay, especially when you are already charged RM10 for courier and also RM2.75 for service charge. I think that sums up the whole title which should be “Don’t renew your road tax with MyEG if you are from Sabah and Sarawak”.