KUALA LUMPUR – The federal government should consider introducing a soft loan for a school bus replacement scheme in Budget 2025, according to the Federation of School Bus Associations Malaysia.
Federation president Amali Munif Rahmat said that the umbrella body has asked for a scheme to be introduced in Budget 2024 when it participated in a stakeholder engagement session. The soft loan, according to Amali, should be interest-free.
“We will use it (soft loan) to replace old buses as there is a regulation where buses that are over 20 years old cannot be registered (as school buses).
“Therefore, we ask (for this loan) so that we (operator associations) can prepare ourselves to replace the old buses.
“When we have this incentive in place, we can bring in younger bus operators as we don’t have many of them, and almost all operators are old-timers at the moment,” he told Scoop when contacted.
Direct diesel subsidy money for operators
Amali also spoke about the ongoing targeted diesel subsidy scheme, where he expressed his hopes for the scheme to be adjusted by channelling the subsidy money directly to school bus operators instead of the fuel companies.
He claimed that operators are facing issues, particularly with fuel company Petronas, which would credit the subsidy at the end of the month. However, there were times when the money was not credited to the bus operators’ fleet cards by the stipulated time, thus forcing them to buy diesel at normal price.
“This is not the case when it comes to other (fuel) companies like Shell, Petron and BHP, where we get the subsidy price the moment we swipe the fleet cards at the pumps.
“Therefore, the government should just give us the subsidy money, not through the fuel companies,” he suggested.
Additionally, Amali also wants the Budget 2025 to have a nationwide free school bus programme, which is similar to the one that is being carried out by Kuala Lumpur City Hall in public housing projects, as well as in Miri and Kuching in Sarawak.
He suggested that the programme can be handled by the Education Ministry. – October 14, 2024