ROAD Transport Department (JPJ) Director-General Datuk Emran Kadir’s disclosure that there could be possible abuses in written tests for driving licences is not shocking, said a Berita Harian editorial.
The newspaper noted that there had been previous cases of abuse of power by JPJ officers and staff which have remained unresolved to date.
These include issuing “parachute” licences to unqualified drivers and falsifying registrations for smuggled and stolen cars.
The editorial said the latest case involving 900 foreigners, who did not even understand Bahasa Malaysia and yet could pass the written driving test in that language, proved that bribery in JPJ had not ended.
Although it might be confined to driving schools and not JPJ, the editorial said it nevertheless could not be denied that this gave the department a bad name.
Government departments, the editorial added, should not be so “shackled” with abuses that ordinary folks lose faith in them.
Utusan Malaysia front-paged an article which had Kedah state committee health chairman Datuk V. Saravanan telling off Perlis Mentri Besar Datuk Seri Shahidan Kassim, urging him to stop making “unfounded statements” on HIV in Kedah without checking the facts.
“There is not even a single prostitute operating in Bukit Kayu Hitam and there are no entertainment outlets there,” he said, adding that making comments without concrete facts confused the people and brought about negative effects.
He said Shahidan’s comments that HIV was soaring among women in Kedah was untrue, adding that although there was some increase in numbers, this was nowhere as bad as the picture painted by Shahidan.
Saravanan said of the 427 people infected in the state last year, only 57 were women. This was a small number compared with the state's population of 1.6 million, he added.
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