PKR strategy director Sim Tze Tzin said ordinary Sarawakian folks cannot afford the fares at all if the air ticket for Kuala Lumpur-Kuching-Kuala Lumpur return flight is close to RM3,000 per person. — Malay Mail photo
KUCHING (Dec 2): Sarawakians who live and work in the Peninsula most likely would not be able to come back to vote for the upcoming state election if ticket prices continue to soar, said Parti Keadilan Rakyat (PKR) strategy director Sim Tze Tzin.
He said ordinary Sarawakian folks cannot afford the fares at all if the air ticket for Kuala Lumpur-Kuching-Kuala Lumpur return flight is close to RM3,000 per person.
“This is the first time after two years when flights are scarce during the pandemic. When the border opens, this is the time and opportunity for individuals or families to fly back to Sarawak to reunite with families, friends, and to celebrate Christmas.
“But this kind of exorbitant pricing actually makes people suffer. They lose opportunity to come back because they cannot pay RM3,000, which amount probably is their monthly salary.
“Especially during this time it is very important for them (who live in the Peninsula) to come home and vote. Every five years you have a democratic right to choose your government, we should celebrate democracy by letting more people to come to Sarawak to exercise their democratic rights, and this kind of pricing actually stops people from coming back to vote their next government for the next five years,” said Sim when met by the media at Kuching International Airport yesterday.
The Bayan Baru member of Parliament added that the government must intervene to correct the imbalance, market distortion of soaring prices of air tickets especially flights to Sarawak.
Citing an example, he said when he flew in to Sarawak he paid close to RM3,000 for the Kuala Lumpur-Kuching-Kuala Lumpur return ticket, which he regarded as exorbitant compared to only RM300 before the Covid-19 pandemic.
“This afternoon, there’s a Ministry of Transport (MOT) Budget debate so I will bring it up to the Parliament. We want the government to intervene to correct this imbalance, market distortion because there is a lot of demand but there is no supply.
“There is something wrong somewhere. We want the government and Malaysian Aviation Commission (Mavcom) to investigate what actually is going on with this exorbitant ticket price.
“This is where we will play our role as MP to voice out and hopefully we can get a clear answer from MOT this afternoon,” he said.
Meanwhile, PKR potential candidate for Batu Lintang, Cherishe Ng, said even though the state Transport Minister Dato Sri Lee Kim Shin had attempted to lower the price of tickets by increasing airlines and flights to Sarawak from 21 flights to 35 flights weekly, some of the air ticket prices were still high.
“We see that there have been some actions and these actions have actually driven down the market price of tickets. If you go to the search engine of AirAsia (AA) and Malaysia Airlines (MH), there are still air tickets ranging in thousands.
“What happens when these lower prices are snatched up? You have no other choice but to pay for higher prices. Therefore, we will have issue of possibility of people not wanting to come back because of these issues,” she said.
She also said Sarawak Disaster Management Committee (SDMC) is the body that controls and restricts flights to Sarawak, which in turn caused the flight tickets to be extremely expensive.
“Only upon approval from SDMC that MH actually increased their flights now but if we compare to number of flights before Covid-19 pandemic, we had 65 flights to Sarawak weekly and now halved to 35 flights only. This has driven the flight tickets to soar as well.
“My suggestion for the transport ministry is to sit down and talk to MH and AA to bring up the services that MH provided during GE14 (14th general election). We know that MH actually increased their number of flights during GE14 especially for those who come back to vote.
“We can do that for Sarawak as well, and looking at the database we know that around 250,000 Sarawakian voters are in the Peninsula and Sabah, these are crucial. They are citizens and Sarawakians, and they have the right to vote,” she said.
Ng hopes to see positive response and continued control of pricing from the MOT, not only in Sarawak but also at the federal level, and cooperation from SDMC.
“We don’t want this kind of issues to be bugging our voters, to make them not want to come back because of exorbitant prices.
“This is part of suggestion from me, what MH has done during GE14 they can do it again and I urge them to bring it back, as a national service for Sarawakian voters to come back to Sarawak, to exercise their democratic rights as citizens of Sarawak,” she said.
from Borneo Post Online https://bit.ly/31mUlxb
via IFTTT
No comments:
Post a Comment