Dara John (left) shows Ling the parking warden’s identity card issued by Miri Parking System Sdn Bhd.
MIRI: Miri City Council (MCC) should not outsource its parking enforcement right to Miri Parking System Sdn Bhd (MPS).
According to DAP-Piasau assemblyman Alan Ling, this will make the people confused.
“The council should not privatise its parking enforcement right and they cannot compare this to outsourcing of grass-cutting and rubbish collecting as it is labour intensive,” he told the media after meeting two officers from the company at the council’s One Stop Centre here yesterday.
They were Dara John from the Operation Unit and Chin Lee Yee from accounts.
Ling had visited the company to get an explanation regarding the poor performance of their parking wardens due to lack of understanding on over-parking prescribed period before issuing over-parking tickets.
He said Miri mayor Lawrence Lai had mentioned that outsourcing of council parking section was to provide better computerised management in terms of hardware and software in order to increase efficiency, reduce human error, lessen public complaints and create better public relations.
However, since the privatisation was implemented on Jan 1, he had received many public complaints on the coupon issues which were highlighted widely by media and social media.
‘Lack of training provided by the company has contributed to the poor performance of their parking wardens. Other than that, there are also a lot of things not being put in place such as online searching, dispute mechanism and uniforms to differentiate between wardens and supervisors.
“Other than that, the coupons printed are of low quality.”
At the moment, MPS have around 123 parking wardens aged 20 years old and above.
The staff have been given five days of training and two days practical at parking zones.
The parking hours at the council car park areas are from 8am to 5pm Monday to Thursday and from 8am to 11.45am and from 2.15pm to 5pm on Friday.
Motorists who have doubts regarding parking issues can get clarification or complain to Dara John of MPS at 085-418734.