Malaysia is all set to enforce the Vehicle Entry Permit (VEP) for Singapore-registered vehicles crossing land borders starting July 1 to improve road safety.
Transport minister Loke Siew Fook said in a press conference on Wednesday, June 4, that vehicles without a valid VEP would be issued a RM300 compound fine, which must be paid before they are allowed to leave Malaysia.
"We're enforcing this from July 1 because ample time has already been given. As we've said before, we started with a soft advocacy approach on Oct 1, 2024," Fook said.
The VEP system was introduced eight years ago, in 2017. It was postponed again, in 2019 and 2020, before being reintroduced last year.
A similar VEP system is being developed for foreign-registered automobiles arriving from southern Thailand.
Loke stated that anyone who have pre-registered but have yet to finish the VEP process will be punished and must pay the punishment before leaving the country.
He added, "There's another category – company-owned private vehicles. If these do not have a valid VEP and no registration was ever made, the driver of the company vehicle will be fined."
"However, if the vehicle has been pre-registered, we will issue a reminder notice instead of a fine. For this category, we are offering a bit more leeway because the process involves submitting various company documents."
Loke stated that enforcement actions would take place outside of border crossings to avoid congestion.
Fines must be paid cashless at road transport department (JPJ) counters, JPJ Mobile units, or online through MyEG.
During the soft enforcement phase, officials randomly scanned 52,012 Singapore-registered vehicles and sent 2,245 reminder warnings (4.32%) to those who lacked VEPs.
As of June 2, 231,018 RFID tags had been issued for individual private vehicles, including 2,660 for company-owned private vehicles.
