Minister in the Prime Minister's Department Mohd Nazri Abdul Aziz has confirmed that the Road Transport (Amendment) Bill will be withdrawn for further revision.

At a press conference in the Parliament lobby today, he said: "I have received the BNBBC (or BN Backbenchers Club) letter on their grouses.

parliament gobind singh ban over nazri mistake 251108 04 "I have read it and I agree with some of what they said. I have recommended that the Bill be taken out of debate and changes made."

These include:

1) Raising the minimum age limit for vehicular licence holders to 17;

2) Raising the compound for traffic offences to RM1,000 from RM300; and

3) Making the Road Transport Department (RTD) the only ones authorised to manufacture number plates.

Nazri said he would recommend that the "problematic" provisions be dropped, but stressed that the final decision would be made by the cabinet.

Asked if other amendments will be dropped, he said that they will have to go through the Bill again with a fine-tooth comb.

The Bill will be re-tabled in the next session of Parliament, he said.

"They will bring back the amendment bill before Jun 7, and they will toss out all three problematic provision."

Asked about the origin of the provisions, Nazri pointed the finger at the RTD.

jabatan pengangkutan jalan "Basically the RTD was trying to take advantage of the need to accommodate the Land Public Transport Bill. They took advantage to make total amendments which have no bearing at all with this."

Questioned when the House would be notified about the withdrawal of the Bill, Nazri said it will be placed lower down in the Order Paper and then taken out gradually.

According to a Parliament official, the government has until tomorrow to remove the Bill.

"They only have to do one amendment to assign to the Land Public Transport Commission some powers which once belonged to the RTD," said the official.

The Bill was tabled for first reading on Monday and was to have been debated this week.

Bipartisan opposition

Earlier today, both the BNBBC and the opposition held separate press conferences in the Parliament lobby to air their grievances.

The BNBBC questioned several provisions which it said is not entirely " rakyat friendly." However they reiterated their general support for the Bill as a means of combating the high accident rate.

bung moktar radin Asked if the government had consult the MPs before formulating tabling the Bill, Kinabatangan parliamentarian Bung Mokhtar Radin (right) said that, while there was some consultation, not all the MPs had been consulted.

Bagan parliamentarian Lim Guan Eng also expressed similar views. In particular he attacked the increase in the proposed compound fine.

"The proposal, I think, has only the support of the police and no one else, not even among BN supporters.

"(Salaries have) not been raised three to five times, so why should you increase the penalty?"

lim guan eng Lim also focused on weaknesses in enforcement as the root cause of current problems and said this is what the government should be concerned with.

"Look at it from an enforcement angle, is it effective? The problem is ineffective enforcement and not fines. (RTD) has to answer why it is ineffective in their duties. I think this is more important than casually increasing compound fines.

"I hope the government will listen to the people and retract this Bill."