Cybercafe owners cry foul over high fees charged by City Hall (DBKL)

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Cybercafe owners cry foul over high fees charged by City Hall (DBKL)

The Kuala Lumpur and Selangor Cybercafe Association (KSC) is taking City Hall to task for charging its members exorbitant operating fees to run their businesses.

They want the Kuala Lumpur local authority to look into their requests to review the fees which they said were too high.

The owners were paying RM400 for their yearly business licences since 2002 but City Hall stopped renewing their licences from 2007.

However, City Hall had allowed the cybercafes to go on operating provided they continued to pay the RM400 yearly fees and did not conduct any illegal activities on their premises.

The cybercafe owners said instead of the yearly fee of RM400, City Hall is now imposing a fee of RM150 per computer and an additional RM150 deposit for each of the machines.

KSC president Michael Chan said that the association with over 80 members are strongly opposing the new charges by City Hall.

He said the collection of the fees was outsourced to Oracle Synergy Sdn Bhd by City Hall.

"We were given a letter by Oracle Synergy in March requiring us to abide by the new regulations or action will be taken against us.

"Since 2002, the owners have been paying RM400 each year and now they are charging us fees per computer. For example, if a premises has 70 computers, the owner will have to pay RM10,500 and an additional RM10,500 for the deposit.

"How are the owners going to afford such high charges?" Chan said at a press conference at the Segambut DAP service centre yesterday.

Chan was commenting on a raid by City Hall on May 20 at Metro Prima Kepong, where the authorities had confiscated the computers from five cybercafes that had refused to pay the high charges.

The Malaysian Insider reported that City Hall would be raiding some 1,300 business premises around Kepong in the next few weeks to weed out traders who were operating without proper licences.

This will include business premises, restaurants, cybercafes, workshops and electrical shops.

Chan said that high fees imposed by City Hall had affected the livelihood of their members and some of them were even contemplating closing down their businesses.

"We are charging RM1.50 to RM2 per hour to use the computers. We also have monthly costs of rental, staff salary, utilities and maintenance. This move by City Hall has severely affected us," he said.

Chan said that the association had sent four letters and a signed petition to City Hall since April, but they had yet to receive a reply.

"What the association wants is a meeting with City Hall to discuss the licence fees. We hope they will look into our grouses," he said.

Segambut MP Lim Lip Eng, who was present at the press conference, said that he would speak to Deputy Federal Territories Minister Datuk Dr Loga Bala Mohan in Parliament.

"We will organise a meeting with Loga to address the issues that the owners have raised,” he said.

Lim also questioned the validity of Oracle Synergy which was appointed by City Hall last year to carry out the collection of fees and renewal of licences.

"According to the Companies Commission of Malaysia, the company (Oracle Synergy) used to be TKP Cleaning Services Sdn Bhd. City Hall mayor Datuk Seri Ahmad Phesal Talib should explain how a cleaning services company has been appointed by City Hall (to collect fees). Was an open tender process carried out?” he asked. – May 22, 2015.

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