Deputy Prime Minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin today expressed regret at the unfounded allegations by the opposition that the government purportedly has no more funds and had to collect money through traffic summonses.
He said the traffic summonses were related to the law and traffic offences which must be settled by the traffic offenders.
“This is not a question of whether the government has money or otherwise, and also not a question of politics. If we don’t collect payment for the traffic summonses, we will not be fair to those who have already paid their summonses previously,” he said when approached by reporters after delivering a public ceramah at Kampung Kuala Tekal, near here, last night.
Muhyiddin said those who had broken the law and exceeded the speed limit specified must settle their summonses because it concerned enforcement of the traffic regulations.
He said this when commenting on the ceramah by the opposition parties campaigning in the by-election for the Kerdau State constituency, here that claimed that the government had run out of funds to administer the country to the extent that it had to collect money from traffic offenders.
Muhyiddin said the settlement for traffic offences should not have become an issue because the summonses were issued to educate the road users to be more courteous.
A total of 1.5 million summonses were settled by traffic offenders within one week up to midnight last night, the deadline for the discount offered by the police.
However, Federal Traffic Police Chief Datuk Abdul Aziz Yusof said there were still 17.3 million summonses that had yet to be settled
