MyKonjob

Our good old British NRIC was changed to the new credit card style MyKad in 2001. It was “claimed” that the High Quality Identity Card will bring about many conveniences to the public and dealing with government offices, banks and sorts. It was said that eventually Malaysian will only need one card to conduct all your transactions. To a point frightening where you’re local Pizza call-center would know how much you have in your savings while you are placing an order.

All nice but put that aside, after 10 years in the market I would like to survey what benefit had it brought to the user (the rakyat). I may be an ignorant fool whom failed to appreciate development (which is not true). But I would love if the technology benefits the people. Instead why I noticed about my card is that:

1.       It does not recognize you at the most critical time when applying for loan

2.       It cracks

3.       Despite producing MyKad, we still required to fill up forms

4.       The amount of form filling when dealing with Gormen has not reduced as well

5.       The card has regular service expenses and inconveniences*

But the the one glaring beneficiary is - the Government, the minister who signed the project awards and the supplier, presumably, most likely, highly likely, a blind guess, a dumb guess, a shot in the dark - is no other than their Cronies lah.

The card seems to have a “shelve-life” of about 3.333 years. Meaning, every three years we replace the cards for either the chips got fried or the laminates comes off. 

Yesterday I was at JPN Putrajaya to replace MyKad for the 3^rd time.  For each renewal, JPN charges RM 10.00 compared to the old IC of RM 0.00. During the 2 hours I was there, easily about 500 went through counter 16, 17 and 18 (photo). Looking at the traffic, I guesstimate 50% are for new registrations including “new citizens” while the rest are lost cards and damaged cards replacements. Let’s say 25% are damaged cards and if the whole day traffic is about 2000 applications, 500 of them will be replacement of damaged cards yes? So that comes to RM 10.00 x 500 = RM 5,000 p/day. Multiply this by the number of JPN centers around the country (say 20), that’s a revenue of RM 100,000.00 per day for damaged MyKad’ s. Belum kira new and lost card lagi. Since Gormen office is open an average of 20 days a month, it totals RM 2 million worth of collection p/month or RM 240 million a year.

(By the way, why dont these ‘parang’ wielding hero’s target Gormen centers rather than restaurants and homes. Bangang, Goblok, Unta!)

Anyway, there's one bloody rich Crony (and minister). Can we go back to the old IC since the new one did not meet its expectation in the last 10 years? Of course not, this money is used to pay Mat Rempit RM 20.00 p/head to ride around town with BN flag - undilah Barisan Nasional.