Shamsubahrin Ismail, founder of Big Blue Taxi Services, said the shortcoming of the Self-Employment Social Security Scheme was why many taxi drivers were reluctant to register and contribute.
He said taxi drivers were still in the dark about what Socso offered through this scheme, although the government had directed them to register last year.
So far, 14,500 taxi and e-hailing drivers are reported to have registered with Socso, whose chief executive, Azman Aziz, said they had until the end of June to do so.
Failure to register would result in compound fines of between RM500 and RM4,000. However, Shamsubahrin said it was unfair to impose a penalty for those who fail to contribute unless the scheme was improved.
“The services provided by the scheme are not that good. There are shortcomings, a lot of things can’t be claimed through the scheme,” he told FMT.
“Let’s say, they pay RM50 a month to Socso, then what will they get if anything happens to them? Like any insurance policy, they have to clarify their offer, or if there is death benefit payment.
“The scheme does not cover the drivers during their off days, how do they know if the drivers are working or not on those days. How will they trace the drivers’ movements?”
Shamsubahrin said if taxi drivers are forced by law to register, then Socso should come out with a better scheme. He called for the deadline for registration to be extended until the scheme is improved.
He said the compound fine was too high.
Some taxi drivers had complained that they were unable to obtain claims although they had contributed to Socso.
Grab Drivers Malaysia Association president Arif Asyraf Ali said Socso contributions would be a burden on drivers.
He urged Socso to have Grab pay the contributions for the drivers as the company already takes 20% to 25% of drivers’ income. The Socso contributions would be an additional burden on the drivers if they had to contribute themselves.
“We are different from taxi drivers,” he said. “Many of the drivers do this part time, do they have to contribute as well?”
Arif also said that it was unfair to impose a high penalty for those who fail to contribute to Socso by the end of this month.