VEHICLE QUOTA PREMIUM (Payment for older vehicles and taxis)

Dr Wang Kai Yuen asked the Minister for Communications whether he will consider allowing partial payment of vehicle quota premium based on the remaining expected life span for vehicles older than 10 years and whether he will allow taxi quota premium to be computed on the legal life span of 7 years for taxis.

Mr Mah Bow Tan: Sir, may I have your permission to take Questions Nos. 11 and 12 together, as they are related.

Mr Speaker: It is all right, as they are related.

Mr Mah Bow Tan: Sir, in the first four months of this year, a total of 26,468 vehicles were deregistered. This was higher than normal.

According to current practice, the replacement Certificates of Entitlement (COEs) from the deregistered vehicles will be added to the quota 12 months later, in other words, with effect from May 1993. The high number of deregistrations is likely to result in increased demand for COEs in the next few months as some owners seek to replace their vehicles.

My Ministry is now studying how best to recycle some of these COEs earlier. The study is being done together with the current review on the Vehicle Quota System, which we have operated for two years already. We also need to resolve the issue of transferability as the non-transferable COE trial will be coming to an end soon.

We are now considering various views and suggestions from many different interested parties, particularly from the Feed- back Unit and also from associations, such as the Automobile Association of Singapore and the Motor Traders Association. Sir, the Member's suggestion to prorate the vehicle quota premium to shorter periods in the case of COE renewal and for taxi COEs will be among the issues considered in this review, together with other suggestions that we have received.

Mr Chiam See Tong: Sir, in view of the fact that about 37,000 cars were scrapped recently, is the Minister willing to abate the COE system to six months instead of a year?

Mr Mah Bow Tan: First of all, Sir, the number is actually about 26,000. But this is the overall number. As I have said, the normal deregistrations for that period are around 2,000 to 3,000 a month. So if you take the extraordinary number of vehicles, above and beyond this number, it is something like 16,000 or 17,000. So we really do not have the "37,000" figure that was mentioned by Mr Chiam. But having said that, as I explained in my answer just now, we are currently reviewing this policy of putting back the deregistered COEs 12 months later and try to bring them forward, with the intention of increasing the supply to keep up with the increased demand for COEs.