KUCHING: Swinburne University of Technology Sarawak is urged to waive its parking fee system for its students and staff to ease their financial burdens.
Wong King Wei, who is the special assistant to Democratic Action Party (DAP) Kota Sentosa assemblyman Chong Cheng Jen, said since the university is imposing expensive tuition fees of up to RM8,000 per semester, the parking on campus ought to be free for lecturers, staff and students.
“I am also informed that the tuition fees at the university keep increasing every year. I have urged the university to exempt the parking charges within the campus and also reduce or maintain the tuition fees in order to ease the burden of parents,” he told a press conference yesterday.
He said, according to a reply from the university recently, the parking fees were introduced in February following numerous complaints by students, staff and members of the public on the unavailability of parking bays on campus.
This was due mainly to outside motorists parking their cars in the campus, thus depriving others of the parking bays.
However, Wong said, to solve the problem, more parking bays should be made available or give priviledge to those with university’s passes. Outsiders or visitors could be charged.
Wong said he had also forward a letter of complaint to the chief minister’s department because the university is a joint project of the state government and Australian Swinburne University.
“Initially, the rate was RM1 per hour. This has been revised after tons of complaints from students and parents, and it is now set to same hourly rate but subject to a maximum of RM4.
“Reduced monthly rate of RM40 is also imposed on students who are eligible for a monthly pass. Furthermore, the government had allowed Kuching Parking Systems Sdn Bhd, a private company to collect the parking fee. This is allowing a private company to profit at the expense of the students,” he added.
In another matter, Wong said parking coupons attendants should be more alert and careful when they issued chits for parking time slots or other offences.
This is to avoid mistakes in writing down the wrong car plate number, which could cause unneccesary problems and inconvenience to innocent car owners, he said.
Citing an example, he said he was issued with three parking chits from the Commission of the City of Kuching North recently.
However, the car plate number written on the chits was not his vehicle number. He, however, paid the chits to prevent whoever the innocent owner from being blacklisted.