The Malaysian Association of Tour and Travel Agents (MATTA) received many complaints from its members that leasing companies have set their own moratorium on repayment of loans offering only two months to the land transporter tour operators.
The travel industry today has no business, and no income for the tour operator to pay for the lease payments of their vehicles.
For leasing companies to aim for good returns at this challenging period when there is no business could easily result in total loss when the lessees decide to surrender their tour vehicles.
If this were to happen, leasing companies would be saddled with a huge fleet of vehicles.
Although leasing companies may be under the purview of the Ministry of Housing and Local Government, according to MATTA President Datuk Tan Kok Liang, but in this period of extraordinary crisis, everyone and all companies must come together as one united nation instead of certain party exercising the rights provided under the law.
“The leasing companies should adopt the same directive as BNM offering 6-month moratorium on loan repayments,” said Tan, adding that it will help rescue the transport operators by being business friendly and acknowledge the fact that the lessees are unable to fulfil the contract to pay their loans in this current circumtance.
“Imposing existing payment conditions, or just reducing a little bit the amount of payment is nothing more than lip service. Hence, we seek the cooperation from the leasing companies to be guided by the moratorium by Bank Negara Malaysia,” Tan concluded.
