LETTER | Ministries must help voluntary fire brigades

Dear Minister of Transport, I would like to bring your attention to the video that has gone viral whereby the Mount Erskine Voluntary Firefighters had to pay for tolls while travelling back from helping out at the recent Selangor flood relief efforts.

On July 27, 2020, the director-general of Firefighters & Rescue Dept, Mohammad Hamdan Wahid (in an article that appeared on Berita Harian Online) stated that "Pasukan Bomba Sukarela Akan Diperkasa" (volunteer firefighters will be empowered) nationwide.

He mentioned that the Fire Services Act 1988 (Akta 341), will further empower the voluntary firefighters in assisting the fire brigade throughout the country.

Fast forward one year later, has our government really lived up to the standards of that mentioned and promised by the national director himself or was this merely lip service?

For one moment, I've been thinking that the North-South Expressway must be out of their mind when they're charging these Voluntary Firefighters toll fees when they're returning from the Selangor flood relief efforts.

The Malaysian Highway Authority (Lembaga Lebuhraya Malaysia) and the minister of transport need to come forward to explain to the members of the public why the voluntary firefighters' fire engines got to be charged with toll fares when they are risking their lives to save all of us by backing up the Fire & Rescue Dept itself.

To the local community who didn't understand how the voluntary firefighters mechanism works, we first need to come to an understanding that these voluntary firefighters are coming out of their own free will without any allowances given by the federal government.

During such a major flood disaster that was happening in various states across Malaysia, was the Malaysian Highway Authority so lacking in money that they could not even give way to the voluntary firefighters to carry out their duties by exempting them from paying toll fees?

Is this how our federal government appreciates the local community that's forking out their own money and time to assist the flood victims by charging this group of voluntary firefighters toll fares? 

I seriously believe that the minister of housing & local government, together with the minister of transport, owes all of us an apology and clarification on the toll fares that is being charged to the voluntary firefighters.

For those of you who didn't know, this is not the first time that this matter has occurred or gone viral. Back on Nov 20, 2019, the voluntary firefighters of Taman Sri Serdang experienced the same issue which happened at the NPE Highway.

Can you believe that two years later, the same exact thing happens again?

I strongly believe that this issue could be rectified by coming out with delegated legislation from both ministries to give exemptions to all the voluntary firefighters from paying tolls when they're going to do their rescue missions, even if it's at another state when a major disaster occurs.

I also want to see the federal government giving them protection by providing all the active members with personal accident insurance throughout their service.

I believed that these two things won’t cost our federal government ministries a lot of money and I also strongly believe that their opposition counterparts would not object to it.

In these tough times, as we are going through the endemic phase of Covid-19, I want to see that our government actually work hand-in-hand with the voluntary firefighters to assist the National Security Council to find a solution.

I am looking forward to a positive response from both ministries soon.

Thank you.

The views expressed here are those of the author/contributor and do not necessarily represent the views of Malaysiakini.