MALAYSIA: Another day, another driver of a vehicle registered in Singapore tried to fill up with RON95 petrol, which only Malaysian citizens may avail of because it is heavily subsidised by the government.
In the same week that a man and his wife from Singapore surrendered themselves to the authorities after having altered their license plate to escape detection when filling up with RON95 fuel in Kulai, Johor, another man driving a Singapore-registered car made a similar attempt, shouting that he was from Sabah when confronted.
According to a Facebook post from a man named Amirul Syafiq, the man made his illicit attempt at a Shell station in Changlun, Kedah, on Saturday (Jan 3) at 11:16 pm.
Mr Amirul wrote that he and the fuel station staff “spotted a suspicious Mazda 3” performing “the usual trick of reverse parking with a sus registration plate.”
He added that they knew at once that it was a “Singapore registered car masquerading as Sabah car as per usual,” but that the driver of the car had taken the extra step to avoid detection by “by replacing the plate number with Malaysian looking plate,” which Mr Amirul called an upgrade from “the uncle with masked plate,” a reference to the man from Singapore who had turned himself in after the incident in Kulai.
Mr Amirul, who had posted a video of the vehicle, wrote that its ERP/IU In-Vehicle unit device could be seen in the clip, although vehicles in Malaysia are also allowed to install these units.
He added that when the staff from the fuel station attempted to stop the driver, “he screamed Sabah! Sabah!”
Mr Amirul credited the “swift action by Shell Changloon staff” as the man’s attempt to obtain RON95 petrol was foiled, and he returned the yellow nozzle which he already had in his hand. He then filled his car up with RON97 petrol instead, and Mr Amirul said he went on to Thailand.
He ended his post by appealing to the Malaysian police to “please take action on this car.”
The action of the staff saved the petrol station a lot of money, since the owners of petrol stations may be fined as much as RM1 million (S$305,000) or be sent to jail for as long as three years for selling subsidised fuel to foreigners. There is no corresponding penalty for foreigners who help themselves to RON95 fuel, however, which many have long considered to be unfair. /TISG
Read also: SG couple caught filling up with RON95 fuel in Kulai have turned themselves in
