Plan your trips during festive season, says Zahid

PETALING JAYA: Deputy prime minister Ahmad Zahid Hamidi has advised road users to plan their trips now that toll exemptions will no longer be granted during the festive period.

In a Bernama report, he said road users should stop thinking of the festive season as a period to receive ‘gifts’ from the government in the form of toll exemptions.

“When there are no ‘gifts’, we (road users) must change the way we drive (plan trips) when the festive season arrives,” he said when asked to comment on the government’s decision to end the provision of free tolls in conjunction with the festive season.

“As toll users, we must schedule our trips to our hometowns or other destinations.”

Zahid said the government had to reimburse highway concessionaires more than RM35 million a day when toll exemptions were given during festive periods.

“Although it does not involve direct cash compensation, the concession has to be extended,” he said during an event in Putrajaya.

Earlier today, works minister Alexander Nanta Linggi said Putrajaya would replace toll exemptions during the festive season with a “more targeted approach”.

Nanta said the government had decided on abolishing toll exemptions during festive seasons at a Cabinet meeting last year.

The government last announced toll exemptions for personal cars during last month’s Christmas holiday.