Big crowd at MBPJ payment counters for licence renewal

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THE Petaling Jaya City Council (MBPJ) payment counters at the headquarters are packed with people wanting to renew various licences before the deadline on Dec 31 and to avoid the late penalty of RM50.

The average waiting time now is about two-and-a-half hours causing restlessness among the people.

One of the many in line was Tan King Siau who said the least MBPJ staff could do was to expedite their services at the counters, as each person was taking about five minutes.

“Why is licence renewal taking so long, I have been waiting for more than two hours and I have 15 others in front of me,” he said.

MBPJ public relations officer Zainun Zakaria said the public were allowed to renew their licences since Oct 1, but very few took the initiative to do it early, and the numbers only started to pick up in December.

Patiently waiting: The crowd at the MBPJ payment counters waiting fot their numbers to be called.

“The situation is the same every year. We have been lenient the previous year where we extended the renewal period until March 31, then later pushed to June 30, Now we want to come down hard and many are panicking and turning up to renew their licences at the eleventh hour.

“Notices has been sent to all licence holders before October explaining the various ways payment can be done but people are still procrastinating and insist on doing it at the payment counters at the headquarters.

“Now they are blaming MBPJ for inefficiency when it fact we have provided various options to make it easier for the people to pay up.

“Starting December, the counters have been operating every day including weekends and public holidays from 9am until 5.30pm. All those coming in by 5.30pm will be given numbers and attended on the same day regardless of how late it is,” she said adding that they closed at 8.30pm on Wednesday.

The public still have the option of making their payment at the EzPay counter which is now located at the Taman Datuk Harun market which can attend to four people at a time, between 10am and 3pm until Sunday, after which it will be relocated to Dataran Sunway PJU 5 until the year-end.

Zainun said the public could also opt to pay via Internet banking or the drive-through counters at its headquarters and produce the receipt at the main payment counter to redeem the licences.

Previously, MBPJ also ran “Jom Bayar Lesen” campaign from Nov 6 to Dec 2, where mobile counters were made available in Amcorp Mall, Tropicana City Mall, 1Utama shopping centre and Giant Kelana Jaya on specific days for the convenience of the people.

“A lot of effort and money has been spent on improving the payment system and advertising our added services but the response has been poor despite knowing that there would be a mad rush at the end of the year,” she said, adding that they expect between 50,000 and 70,000 licence renewal applications.

“I foresee the same situation at the end of February next year as 220,000 people rush to pay their house assessment fees,” she said.