Good news everyone! The pesky 10% surcharge that we’ve been paying for the so called convenience of using Touch ‘n Go to pay for parking is now a thing of the past!  Domestic Trade and Consumer Affairs Deputy Minister Chong Chieng Jen relayed the information at the Dewan Rakyat today as part of his response to a query by Ayer Hitam’s MP Dr Wee Ka Siong.

Chong told the Dewan Rakyat that new agreements signed with merchants will exclude the surcharge while existing agreements will be eliminated in phases. Apparently contractual obligations done under the previous government is what has been holding up the abolishment, but now that the current contracts are about to expire, things can finally start happening.

He also addressed the issue of the 50 sen charge imposed for top ups of Touch ‘n Go cards and unfortunately, that particular surcharge is here to stay. It turns out that the surcharge is not actually imposed by Touch ‘n Go, but instead by the merchants that choose to offer the reload services. At the time of writing, more than 2880 of the 11,168 reload locations do not impose the 50 sen charge.

Now the question is, would this have even happened if we didn’t make so much noise about it?