KUALA LUMPUR: Two new Vehicle Entry Permit collection centres will be opened in Johor Baru.
A spokesman for TCSens, the private vendor appointed by the Road Transport Department to handle VEP matters said the new collection centres will be in Paradigm Mall, Johor Baru and another mall in Iskandar Puteri.
The Straits Times reported that the VEP Collection Centre at Paradigm Mall will be located on the seventh floor of the mall's carpark. It will operate until Jan 31, 2025.
The Paradigm Mall centre will open from 10am to midnight today and tomorrow.
After that, it will open daily from 10am to 10pm.
There has yet to be any information about the mall in Iskandar Puteri which will have the new VEP collection centre.
TCSens said the two existing VEP collection Larkin and Taman Daya will stop operating following an announcement by the RTD yesterday.
When asked why the centres in Larkin and Taman Daya stopped issuing VEPs, the spokesman told the Straits Times there was limited space in those facilities and this resulted in overcrowding and traffic congestion.
"A location with greater parking capacity and room for smoother vehicle flow would significantly ease these issues," he said.
In June, Transport Minister Anthony Loke confirmed that the VEP will finally be implemented on all foreign-registered vehicles entering Johor from Singapore on Oct 1.
He had said that the government will not U-Turn on its implementation, which will help facilitate with the enforcement related to foreign vehicles entering the country.
The VEP regulation applies to foreign motorists entering at both the Customs, Immigration, and Quarantine (CIQ) complex at the Sultan Iskandar Building (BSI) at the Causeway and the CIQ Complex at the Sultan Abu Bakar building at the Second Link.
Meanwhile, the TCSens spokesman reminded motorists to book an appointment via Malaysia's RTD website and to bring along their appointment slips when visiting the permit centres to collect the VEP radio frequency identification (RFID) tags.
The VEP, which comes with an RFID tag, allows the Malaysian authorities to identify foreign-registered vehicles using the country's roads.
On Oct 3, Loke had said 112,658 VEP tags have been issued, and 75,412 of them have been installed and activated.
Those with queries can call the TCSens hotline at 03-7941-2888.