Saturday, December 31, 2005

MyKad Rush

It's always us Malaysians that have the "Last Minute Syndrome", don't we? If you give us plenty of time, there's no urgency and eventually it'll slip out of your mind until the 11th hour.

Actually me and the rest of my family are sorta guilty of it too, since we were among the droves of people that flocked to the National Registration Department to get our old ICs changed for free before the deadline. I was there on Tuesday and was surprised to get number 1725 (dad and mom two number ahead) even at 9am, and eventually our applications got processed at 5pm. It took an amazing 8 hours of waiting! We didn't even bother to wait the whole 8 hours, so we went elsewhere to enquire about a new apartment block and later had lunch, only to be back at 2pm. Needless to say, the 3 hours spent waiting there was as long as eternity.

But heck, if I were to compare Tuesday's visit to the Department and the news that I've seen from Wednesday onwards, I think we may have actually got the better end of the stick. Lines snaking from early in the morning from the clerk's desk until the elevators and right out on the street, just to get their numbers! And now there's people even willing to pay RM50 just to get a good number. Are they seriously whacked out insane?

Though I very much think that there should at least be some explanation on the price charged for the applicants after the Dec. 31 deadline. When I was there my mom kept hearing rumours that it's gonna be a RM100 or RM200 fine, and hence I suppose the urgency now. And it's not even gonna be a fine, just an application fee.

You know what? I'm willing to bet that after the deadline's passed, you're going to see another batch of people who don't even want to bother changing their ICs, the so-called "tidak apa" ones.

And gah, have to make another trip to the Department again. Blame it on dad, who didn't notice that the person processing his application left out a section of the address. But then I think we'd have to wait until January, lest we get trampled by the crowds.

External links:

- The MyKad that we're gonna get, if nothing goes wrong.
- News from The Star on Dec. 29. (More links and pics at the end of that article)

5 comments:

Unknown said...

Don't know why everyone so rush.. you can either do it early or later with just pay the fees..

I think this is human. All love to wait until last minutes.

Anonymous said...

Oh no, which reminds me. I haven't done so!

Andy said...

Penang podcast (got a personal name?): Yeah, it's true. People usually don't panic unless it's their pants on fire. :P

Jin: Malaysians living overseas are exempted from the deadline, I think. So don't worry. :)

Anonymous said...

Hey Andy pray that the pic they took turns out well =.=" i find that among 10 photos they take 9 are either out of focus,too bright or even worst...alienized.

democracy4now said...

Hey Andy! The problem here is : what is in it for people to rush for it ? While it seems to be the wish /plan for govt to want to switch to mykad little info had been given on how privacy can be protected -in other country a law need to be enacted to ensure that! Many countries eg USA, Australia etc don't use any national identity card. Whatever the reason it may be behind the govt's switch think of this : It cost something like RM30.00 for each mykad X 26 mil citizens .....The contractor is running to the bank!