MOU between cab companies and Uber cancelled at 11th hour

PETALING JAYA: The much anticipated Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) between cab companies network and online transportation network company Uber didn't materialise today due to protest by taxi drivers.
It was called off last night by the Federation of Taxi Companies for Peninsular (Gabungan) president Datuk S. M. Salahuddin Ayubi Kamal Aazad, originally scheduled to be held at Sunway Lagoon Club this morning.
theSun understands that the eleventh hour decision was made by Salahuddin to postpone the MOU signing with Uber, as part of Gabungan's Extraordinary General Meeting (EGM) agenda, after learning that the cabbies were planning to assemble near the event location and could ambush the EGM.
"To avoid unnecessary confrontation with the taxi drivers, we have to cancel the EGM and MOU signing today," Gabungan's spokesperson told theSun.
He added that Gabungan president may call for a meeting soon with key players of taxi operators to finalise the proposed move to collaborate with Uber Malaysia. 
Asked when the tie-up with Uber will take off, the spokesperson said: "Please allow us to go through the details because we want to make it as an option for taxi drivers to utilise Uber app and prosper."
Meanwhile, taxi drivers were dumbfounded and couldn't comprehend that taxi companies, "were willing to sleep with the 'enemy' in order to survive."
Klang Valley Taxi Drivers Action Committee president Zailani Isa Usuluddin described the proposed move by cab companies to embrace Uber as an act of betrayal.
"After what we have been through, battling and waging war against Uber app and its drivers for causing hardship to us all this time including our effort of dragging SPAD to court, this is what are coming to — begging to this Jewish capitalist?" he said.
"We were never consulted about this collaboration and we feel like we have been treated like rubbish," Zailani explained.
He led around over 100 cabbies this morning in handing over a memorandum of protest to Federal Territory and Selangor Taxi Operators Association president Datuk Aslah Abdullah, who was present at the location and was not aware that the EGM was cancelled.