The Ministry of Transport, which has been
under fire over a scheme to slap three new vehicle fees, has backed down from
part of the plan
Minister
of Transport Dinh La Thang, grilled by local media over the planned fees at a
news briefing after the monthly Cabinet for March in Hanoi last week, said that
if approved, two of the three fees would not take effect this year.
The
Government is just weighing the proposed scheme to levy a road maintenance fee,
a private vehicle traffic restriction fee and a fee on restriction of vehicular
traffic in downtown areas in major cities at peak hours.
Asked
about the Government’s standpoint on the controversial proposal, Vu Duc Dam,
minister and chairman of the Government Office, said at the news briefing that
the ministry had passed the fees collection scheme to the Government.
But the
Government is still in the process of garnering ministries’ views on the plan
before it decides whether or not to send it to the National Assembly because
such kinds of fee are not yet available on the list of fees and charges
provided by the National Assembly Standing Committee, Dam said.
“That’s
just a proposal of the Ministry of Transport. That’s all,” he said.
Meanwhile,
Minister Thang said the road maintenance fee, with effect from June 1 this
year, was not an initiative taken by the ministry but this was a requirement
set by the law on road transport that came into force in July 2009.
“There
shoud have been guidelines for collecting this fee earlier. It was the
ministry’s fault that no guidance documents had come out and no campaign had
been carried out to raise public awareness of the fee,” he said.
For the
other two fees, Thang cited Resolution 21 adopted by the National Assembly
Standing Committee at its second session as a reason for the ministry to put
forth the two fees.
In the
resolution, the National Assembly Standing Committee approved of measures to be
taken by the Government and his ministry to cope with worsening traffic
congestion, and increase penalties on traffic rule violations, he added.
He said
the Government also sent the National Assembly a report on taking strong
actions to deal with increasingly severe traffic congestion and road accidents
in major cities. Government Report 256 dated November 25, 2011 mentioned the
two above fees, he noted.
A
resolution adopted by the fourth plenum of the Party Central Committee also
makes clear that road users are responsible for paying fees as a contribution
to infrastructure development, he said. “Based on those, we’ve submitted our
proposal.”
He said
the ministry had made assessments on impacts of the proposed private vehicle
traffic restriction and traffic jam reduction fees in its plans to develop
commuter bus systems and roads until 2020.
When
the two fees are introduced is unkown, Thang said, because they require
National Assembly enactment. “If approval is forthcoming, they will not apply
this year since the economy is reeling from difficulties.”
SGT
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