A deeply disappointing "live on air" by josephine teo

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An honorable member of the Coffee Shop Has Just Posted the Following:

A DEEPLY DISAPPOINTING "LIVE ON AIR" BY JOSEPHINE TEO

Post date:
15 Apr 2015 - 9:43pm








Yesterday, Minister of State for Transportation, Ms Josephine Teo, went live on air to connect with the people regarding about the transport system in Singapore. The usual topic about Taxi tops the most questions asked by the member of public.

The first caller is a friend of mine and it's quite disappointing that before he ask the questions, the station actually cuts off his conversation. Maybe due to lack of time or avoiding questions... Same for majority of the caller is just touch and go situations.

Whatever answer she gave is just touching briefly without addressing the concern. Giving her the benefit of doubts and shortage of time, I will address two main issue about her last night.

1) Why need gatekeeper to keep away difficult questions? Being million dollar minister, coupled with a few years of experience in Transportation Ministry, don't you think she should fairly confidence about any questions being asked? Agreed that she might not know all answer but we expect her to know at least 80% - 90% of the questions giving the fact that she is a million dollar minister!

2) Giving wrong information to the public:
Last night, she educated the public what is the different between Uber and Uberx... This is what she said: Uber is for taxi while Uberx is considered for private registration no plate that are used....

But the correct information should be:

Uber is a company name which they have three "Products" in their business model.

i. UberExec - A more luxury limousine services by private cars using GPS Metered charged.
ii. Uberx - A more standard private cars that using GPS Metered Charged.
iii. UberTaxi - Just a Apps to link up Passengers to Regular Taxi. It's work like the rest of the Apps in the Market like GrabTaxi, EasyTaxi etc.

Going live on air and she should know that this is one of the hot topic, she can even give wrong information! Is she be bother or is she really out of touch or she doesn't process the quality to be a minister?

Isn't a very worry sign? Will she tabled a bill with wrong information given? Will she bother to experience herself what is happening on the ground?

Enough said about her, right now lots of Taxi Drivers are very unhappy with the Transportation Ministry, I would like to use this opportunity to ask Ms Josephine Teo for an open dialogue with us, the taxi drivers! Can Ms Josephine Teo emailed me: williamlim77[a]gmail.com for arrangement for the open dialogue
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Actually we have prepared a few questions for her last night to answer and apparently either no time or avoiding it! anyway, below are the questions we have prepared...

1) Are the Transport Ministry encouraging the taxi drivers to switch to Uber Business without any controlling from the Transport Ministry? Is it Transport Ministry are encouraging the returns of the Taxi Industry in the 60s and 70s?

2) Are the Transport Ministry encouraging Taxi Drivers to ditch Taxi Driving, creating an Apps, Rent a car to conduct our own businesses without the control from the LTA?

3) Currently, PTC had just simplify the surcharge of all taxi but it is not uniform across all taxi companies. PTC is just to stabilize the fare but not the rental? Is it that PTC should standardize all fare to "Standard Fare" & "Premium Fare" across the board? Why the Ministry of Transport have the power to do it but refusing to act on it?







4) Is it fair to have the 2% growth rate for all taxi companies? The biggest winner will always be the biggest taxi fleet. This distort the fair competition for taxi industry for other small operators to grow and compete with the big players! Should we have 2% cap on big taxi operators while encouraging smaller operators to grow to have a fair competition?

5) Why should the Ministry of Transport let the taxi operators decide the pricing of the taxi fare? Isn't the taxi drivers and the passenger are at the mercy of the taxi operators? Taxi is considered as public transport thus it shouldn't be priced by the taxi operators to have their maximum profit with disregarding to the affordability from the taxi drivers and passengers.

6) Nobody like to get involved into accident. Why are certain taxi operators can set the accident excess to be as high as more than $5K? Shouldn't the Ministry of Transport to step in to standardize the accident excess rate of the taxis? With ever increasing accident excess, it make thing worst when it comes to raining, taxi drivers would rather forgo their earning than getting into an accident which can cost them up to two months of their earning! So what can the Ministry of Transport do to encourage those taxi driver who are risk adverse to drive during rainy days?

7) The government is encouraging Singaporeans to have Work-life Balance! But Taxi drivers are not having any work-life balance! What are the Ministry of Transport going to advice to let taxi driver to have work-life balance since taxi drivers have to pay rental everyday, minimum mileage to clock and timing to drive given by LTA?

Lim Lian Chin William
*Mr Lim is a taxi driver who is a member of the Singapore Democratic Alliance.This article first appeared on his facebook page here.


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