SINGAPORE - At 3am daily, when many people are deep in slumber, Mr Kumar Batumalai enters Singapore via the Woodlands Checkpoint from Johor in Malaysia to deliver cooking oil and empty steel drums.
After doing so for 20 years, the lorry driver with PGeo Edible Oils, which makes food products, is glad he does not have to bring paper permits with him for each trip he makes any more.
Drivers of cargo vehicles like him no longer have to wait for officers to process each permit at Singapore’s checkpoints.
Instead, they can submit their vehicle number and cargo clearance permits via the SG Arrival Card Cargo function on the Immigration and Checkpoints Authority (ICA) website or the MyICA mobile application before reaching the checkpoints.
Drivers say this has resulted in time saved. And the paperless scheme appears to have caught on.
ICA officers said earlier in February that based on their observations, only one or two drivers still use the hardcopy cargo clearance permit during each 12-hour shift.
In releasing its 2023 annual statistics on Feb 13, ICA said that more than 94 per cent of drivers used the paperless cargo clearance system as at December 2023.
This paperless clearance initiative for conventional cargo was rolled out at Singapore’s land, air and sea checkpoints in March 2023. Conventional cargo refers to cargo that is not transported in containers, such as livestock and medical equipment.
It tags a driver’s permit to his vehicle plate number, allowing officers to retrieve information from the back end and clear the vehicle without the need for hardcopy permits.
ICA said this has cut the clearance time from an average of seven minutes to five minutes per vehicle.
All five drivers of cargo vehicles interviewed earlier in February at Woodlands Checkpoint said the system was easy to use.
Lorry driver Ameerul Hayat, 36, who has been transporting concrete from Johor for the past 12 years, said he has had no problem using the MyICA app to upload his permits, as the instructions are simple.
Fellow lorry driver Saw Seng Chye, 45, who transports vegetables, said: “I can just scan and press the button (to upload my permit to the app), and it makes things faster.”
Assistant Superintendent (ASP) Muhammad Zulhelmy from ICA’s operations division told reporters that the app and website’s SG Arrival Card Cargo function, which offers English, Chinese and Malay options, will be expanded to include Thai and Tamil.
ICA said this is in the works, but did not specify when this would happen when asked.
Despite the time savings from the paperless scheme, drivers said they have occasionally experienced issues with the website or app.
Lorry driver Chong Yao Wen, 55, who delivers vegetables, said that on one or two occasions, he could not get into the app to upload his permits.
Hence, he had to fall back on paper permits.
ASP Zulhelmy acknowledged that drivers have flagged issues with the app not loading at times.
The Johor Sand and Granite Lorry Operators’ Association said in an e-mailed statement on behalf of president Frankie Chia that drivers and transport companies had faced “some technical challenges at the early stages of using the MyICA mobile app”.
To get around this, ICA said it will introduce a feature on its website and app to allow drivers to upload permits offline when the system is down. A QR code will then be generated, which drivers will present at the checkpoints for clearance.
The agency said this feature will be rolled out progressively in 2024.
Editor’s note: This story has been edited for clarity.
