James Kon
The online application for driving and vehicle licences recorded an increase of 373 per cent from 10,046 applications in 2019 to 33,326 in 2020. The applications continued to increase to 124,281 in 2021.
This was revealed by Minister of Transport and Infocommunications Dato Seri Setia Awang Abdul Mutalib bin Pehin Orang Kaya Seri Setia Dato Paduka Haji Mohd Yusof during the Muzakarah session between Legislative Council (LegCo) members and the Ministry of Transport and Infocommunications (MTIC) yesterday.
Dato Seri Setia Awang Abdul Mutalib highlighted the challenges brought about by the COVID-19 outbreak that have created backlog in the issuance of driving and vehicle licences.
“It’s undeniable that during the COVID-19 outbreak, a majority of public services were affected and challenges created especially related to the application of driving license and vehicle licences. When the government implemented its business continuity plan (BCP), workforce and operation hours became limited resulting in backlog of the issuance of driving and vehicle licences.”
To address this, the minister cited several efforts that have been implemented by the Land Transport Department (JPD) with the cooperation of relevant agencies, including the upgrading of the TrasnportBN application by introducing additional services such as applications for driving licences and vehicle licences, vehicle license plate numbers (Nomborku) and digital driving and vehicle license features.
“The department also increased the capacity of Talian Darussalam at 123 ‘call agents’ from 62 to 91 to handle the number of applications for driving and vehicle licences that has increased around 110 to 170 per cent per month,” he added.
Meanwhile, the minister also revealed some of the major achievements including achieving an overall of 35.29 per cent of its 34 key performance indicators (KPIs) of the six core strategies under MTIC2025 within the first year of its implementation at the end of 2021.
“MTIC has regularly aligned the strategic initiatives with the efforts of the Government of His Majesty Sultan Haji Hassanal Bolkiah Mu’izzaddin Waddaulah ibni Al-Marhum Sultan Haji Omar ‘Ali Saifuddien Sa’adul Khairi Waddien, Sultan and Yang Di-Pertuan of Brunei Darussalam such as Sustainable Development Goals, National Youth Policy and others in moving towards the realisation of Brunei Vision 2035.
He also shared other MTIC major achievement in 2021 such as the launch of Understanding Your Vehicle e-book guideline to foster awareness of the importance of maintenance or upkeep in accordance with the standard approved, and support road safety initiatives in the country.
In the info-communications sector, the minister revealed, “A pilot project to promote and raise awareness of the transition to the use of 5G in the future has taken place, to promote and raise awareness on the use of 5G in the future.
“Alhamdulillah, the Council for Research and Advancement of Technology and Science (CREATES) has been established to replace the Brunei Research Council and National working committee on science and technology as a measure to spur research and development activities.”
“Through CREATES, a research project to help address and curb Covid-19 has been approved to be implemented in collaboration with the Universiti Brunei Darussalam, Ministry of Health (MoH), Singapore’s Duke-NUS Medical School and EVYD Technology.
“The TransportBN mobile application was also updated as one of the methods to facilitate services provided to the public to apply for Road Tax and driving license in digital form in addition to the current available features.”
The meeting also provided an opportunity for the MTIC to share the latest developments from issues that have been raised previously and together find solutions to new issues that have impacted the well-being of the public.
The LegCo delegation was led by Yang Berhormat Iswandy bin Ahmad.
Also present were Permanent Secretary at MTIC, Deputy Permanent secretary (Info-communications) and Acting Deputy Permanent Secretary (Transport), interim commissioner of Cyber Security Brunei (CSB), head of departments, and senior officials at the MTIC.
