Izah Azahari
The public has mostly positive views on the change to an exit and entry fee at the land border as a per-vehicle charge instead of a per-person charge.
The change was announced on Tuesday and will go into effect starting December 12.
Previously, the service charge (CaP) through the exit and entry system (EES) was a BND3 fee one-way per person.
It will be changed to BND3 per vehicle with less than seven passengers, BND6 for vehicles with seven to 25 and BND10 for vehicles with more than 25.
Fakhri Zainol, 34, believes that the change will ease financial concerns when it comes to travel and help streamline the border crossing process to be more efficient.
Meanwhile, Jury Yusof, 41, said it will help middle-to-low income families to go on holidays as they often opt for crossing the land borders instead of more expensive air-travel.
“This decreased road trip budget is definitely something people will welcome because Bruneians often like to go on huge family trips across borders,” added Jury.
Maria Osman, 45, said many Bruneians have relatives in the neighbouring country, and the CaP change will help with family visits, especially for those with relatives in Sabah and Sarawak.
Maria said the previous per-person charge would be burdensome on her family of seven. She also believed that the change will increase the number of tourists coming in via land borders.
However, Ramlee Salim, 53, believed that the per-person charge should not have been changed. If it must be changed, then the per-vehicle charge should be higher, perhaps at BND5 at its lowest rate, he said.
“We need to generate some sort of income from that tax even if it is just a small portion from anyone who crosses our borders – locals and foreigners alike,” added Ramlee.
