GEORGE TOWN, Sept 4 — Penang Smart Parking (PSP) operator, Heitech Padu Berhad, will have to continue paying a minimum sum to both city councils under its contract despite not collecting parking fees from September 1 to 4, state exco Jagdeep Singh Deo said.
The local government, housing and town and country planning committee chairman said users do not have to pay for parking for these four days as there are issues with the smart parking system.
“We do not want to burden ratepayers so parking is free while the operator resolves the issue with the parking application. The operator will still have to fulfill contractual requirements to pay a minimum sum to both city councils,” he said during a press conference today.
Users were unable to access the PSP application to pay for parking fees at city council parking lots on both the island and the mainland since September 1.
Jagdeep explained the interruption in service was due to the operator’s attempt to upgrade the system.
He said Heitech Padu explained that the service interruption happened during the trial of the upgraded system.
“We take this seriously as it has affected close to 400,000 users,” he said.
Jagdeep said both city councils have already issued show-cause letters to Heitech Padu and the operator was called in today to explain the situation.
“They assured us the system will be back to normal tomorrow,” he said.
When asked why the state did not terminate the operator and appoint a new one since they have been issued with a total of seven show-cause letters by both councils since its appointment in August last year, Jagdeep said: “To be fair, a majority of users fully support the PSP, the issue this time is because they were trying to upgrade the system and encountered some problems.
“It is not that I am supporting the operator at all, we have all these smart initiatives, if the operator fails to deliver, we will take action,” he added.
He said from now on the operator is required to inform both city councils before undertaking any upgrade or changes to the PSP system so that the councils are prepared.
Seberang Perai City Council Mayor Datuk Rozali Mohamud said the operator should have discussed with the city council before they upgrade the system.
“They can’t just stop abruptly like this, we don’t have any contingency plan so in future if they plan to do anything to the system, they must discuss with us so that we have a contingency plan,” he said.
Penang Island City Council Mayor Datuk Yew Tung Seang said the reasons given by Heitech was still unacceptable.
“Our IT team is closely monitoring their system and we will take stern action if this was to happen again,” he said.
Meanwhile, Heitech Vice Executive President Abdul Halim Md Lassim apologised to users for the interruption in the PSP system.
“We are conducting a version upgrade to improve user experience but we faced technical issues and the system faced downtime,” he said.
He said they are now fine-tuning the system and promised that the system will be accessible tomorrow morning.
The PSP is a private finance initiative that was introduced in August last year.
The project was awarded to Heitech Padu Berhad through open tender where 61 companies had tendered for the project.
Heitech Padu was given a seven-year concession that started in May 2019 and since it was a PFI, the company will be footing the estimated RM115 million costs to install the system, manage, maintain and operate it.
The concession included management, maintenance, enforcement, collection of revenue and operation of the application and system for both city councils.
