Letter to Editor: Why is JPJ taking a long time with road tax refunds?

For illustration purpose: Cars on a busy road in Petaling Jaya.

Dear JPJ

Perhaps there are many private vehicle owners in Malaysia who are not aware that JPJ will refund ‘road tax’ that you have paid subjected to the remaining validity months of the said Lesen Kenderaan Motor (LKM).

Last year, in October 2023, I submitted all necessary documents and details required to get a refund from JPJ. The amount is slightly more than RM1000.

The officer at the JPJ counter at the Petaling Jaya branch informed that it will take between 1-2 months to get the refund.

I waited until January 2024 before writing via email to JPJ; the reply from an En. Abdul Rahman bin Ghazali, was that it will take between 3-6 months to process a refund by the Unit Kewangan, JPJ Selangor.

Six months has since passed, and all my attempts at communicating to JPJ SocMed has been met with a deafening silence. Even attempts made to #anthonyloke, #MOTMalaysia, #JPJMalaysia via X (formerly known as Twitter) and @lokesiewfook via Threads have all met silence. What is the point of having a SocMed presence when one does not bother to read or reply?

My questions to JPJ, and the Ministry of Transport, is 6 months a reasonable time frame to process a ‘tax refund’ in the 21st century? With all the fancy computerisation, cloud-based data storage, multi- million RM budget for IT development/spending every year, how long would it take process a refund?

Since getting any reply is so difficult, please surprise me (and by extension other Malaysians) by acknowledging this letter and giving a response.

 I have left my contact details with the editor. Thank you.

Customer

P.S. Customer has updated Weekly Echo that he visited JPJ counter today and the response of the Help Desk was: “6 months biasa….boleh sampai satu tahun…tiada masa tentu”.

Officer at counter said: “JPJ Padang Jawa in charge…so …go there .or call there. Not under JPJ PJ anymore.”

Customer is now further perplexed.