TRANSPORT Minister Anthony Loke Siew Fook was trolled for incessantly rolling out special registration plate number series while not keeping an eye on the alarming number of deaths stemming from road accidents involving heavy vehicles in the likes of lorries, trailers and express/tour buses.
Yesterday (Jan 2), the Seremban MP unveiled the FG series which bidding is conducted via the JPJeBid system till Jan 6 in conjunction with the opening of the new Putrajaya Road Transport Department (JPJ) office as a revenue generation exercise for the latter.
In May last year, JPJ introduced the “FFF” special plate number for Putrajaya which was part of the ‘F’ series.
Describing Loke as a “number plate minister”, a somehow Madani government-friendly Injang (@Injang_Nation) fired the first salvo by showing his rare hostility “over endless talks of number plates when people are losing their lives on the road because of lorries/buses”.
This is despite a commenter trying to defend Loke by contending that many other issues were touched at the media conference “only for the spotlight to fall on the number plate”.
Unfortunately for Loke who is also the DAP secretary-general, the launch of the special registration plate series did provide an excellent avenue to undermine him.
Even former DAP Bukit Bintang MP-turned- Madani government critic Wee Choo Keong seized the moment to wonder if Loke “doesn’t have better job to do than to announce a number plate tender process”.
With many commenters continued to express disgust that the Transport Ministry is prioritising revenue generation while seemingly giving cold shoulder to the issues of speeding and reckless driving of heavy vehicles on expressways.
They went on to argue that it does not require someone in Loke’s capacity to announce number plate series.
More broadly, some commenters wondered how Loke could end up in the rank of second most performing minister after 192 hours of voting for the “Best Minister 2024” title.
This is when it was pointed out that “there’s no difference between previous governments with the Madani administration under MOT (Transport Ministry)”.
At the end of the day, one commenter sarcastically suggested to future bidders that “FG” could be the acronym for “Failed Government”, hence it is best to abstain from bidding for that number series. – Jan 3, 2025
