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| The Government has decided to suspend road maintenance fee for motorbike users from June 5. — Photo chinhphu.vn |
Viet Nam News
HÀ NỘI — The government will stop collecting the controversial road maintenance fees from motorbike riders from June 5.
This follows a new order, Government Decree 28/2016/NĐ-CP, which will come into effect that day.
The collection of road maintenance fees remains applicable for automobile drivers.
Although the collection of the road maintenance fee from motorbike riders was in line with the Law on Road Transport and the Order on Fees and Charges, it would be postponed due to difficulties in execution, the transport ministry said.
Loopholes in regulating the jurisdiction of local authorities over the fee collection had made the ministry highly dependent on the residents -- some of whom voluntarily paid the fees while others did not. Also, the penalties on those who failed to pay the fees were not feasible.
Certain localities had already delayed or even stopped the fee collection, leading to public criticism that this was unfair. The localities explained they had taken this decision because the amount collected was not worth the effort.
This, in turn, had resulted in very low collection of road fees since it was first introduced in 2013 and a decreasing trend through the years.
The ministry reported last year that over the three previous years, fees collected had amounted to only VNĐ1.2 trillion (US$53.8 million), reaching only half the VNĐ2.6 trillion ($116.5 million) per year target planned by the Road Maintenance Fund.—VNS
