AT a press conference on Aug 15, exco member for Local Government, Housing, Town & Country Planning Jagdeep Singh announced that the Penang state government is inviting bidders to submit Request For Proposal (RFP) for the implementation of Smart Parking for the whole of Penang.
According to Jagdeep, a briefing session held on July 30 received encouraging response from 121 companies and as of 5pm on Aug 14, 98 companies had purchased the RFP documents.
“Due to the encouraging response by bidders, we have thought it fit to extend the time. The numbers speak for themselves. The state government has decided to extend the RFP submission date to 12pm of September 3. This is to ensure that RFP documents submitted to us are of good quality and will meet the needs and objectives of the state government to implement an efficient parking system in Penang,” he said.
On a different matter raised by the media involving the outstanding debt incurred by the previous concession holder which owed the MBPP money, Jagdeep remains confident that it is precisely due to the debts that he is pushing forward the RFP arrangement.
“First of all, in relation to the outstanding amount, yes there is an outstanding amount. But I cannot confirm now whether or not they have paid. But this is one of the issues why we are pushing forward and call for this RFP so that we can get some input from interested parties as to what are the best way for efficient smart parking. There are many available systems and we want to see which is the best,” he said.
Story by Victor Seow
Pix by Alvie Cheng
Video by Law Suun Ting