MARAH says MERS 999 misleading victims of crime

2-step my foot, says M A R A H

"... given the possible life and death nature of emergency services, MARAH calls upon MERS 999 to stop misleading the public that it is a two-step process and to publish a clarification immediately." - MARAH

You'd think that Dave Avran, the founder of citizens' crime-busting initiative M.A.R.A.H., would be thrilled with MERS 999, the government's initiative to assist victims of crime. But, nope, he isn't at all; on the contrary, he is bloody put off by MERS 999. He thinks MERS 999, developed by the Communication and Multimedia Ministry at a cost of nearly RM1 billion - yes, ONE BILLION RINGGIT* - is daylight robbery!

Avran has done two postings on the matter. Excerpts from his first posting:

SaveMe999, developed at a cost of almost RM1 billion and launched on Sept 9, is currently solely reserved for disabled persons, who need to register with their Welfare Department registration number.

This is very distressing news indeed. What do we do in the meantime when there is no direct link to PDRM? The current MERS999 emergency hotline is administered by Telekom and precious minutes are wasted by the operator’s vetting process before they decide to connect you to PDRM, Hospital, Bomba or National Defence, where the caller will again have to go through another verification process by giving name, identification number, address and nature of emergency. Not exactly the experience we would want to have to go through when we are in a distraught and panicky state. 

Quoting the latest Auditor-General's report, Avran said some 32 per cent of emergency calls made to MERS 999 had gone unanswered between Jan and Aug 2012.
That works out to roughly 7.6 million unanswered calls!
It's hard to disagree with Dave when he says:

"Even if only a minuscule 1% of these emergency calls were a life and death situation, the repercussions are truly alarming ..."

Read more SaveMe999 replaces MyDistress mobile app by Spanking the Monkey, Nov 23.
Also AG's Pembayaran Tidak Wajar, Oct 1.
Click h e r e for links to SaveMe999

In his second posting dated Dec 22, Avran reproduced a press statement issued by MARAH against MERS 999 for "misleading the public" with its newspaper advertisement. He also challenged the wisdom of using the traditional voice call method when an existing mobile app (recently ditched allegedly to make way for MERS 999 and SaveMe999) had proven to be easier and hell of a lot cheaper.

Excerpts:

"I would like to draw your attention to the half page color advertisement on page 28 (Nation) of the Star daily newspaper dated 21^st December 2013. A copy of the ad is posted above for your easy reference.
"This advertisement falsely implies that it is a two-step process to dial 999 and seek assistance in an emergency. This is in direct conflict with its own websitewww.999.gov.my which clearly states five steps ...

Read more: Statement on false advertisement of MERS 999, Dec 22

* Actually it was only RM801 million