Ministry of Transportation announces intend to scrap motorbike road fees

HA NOI (VNS) - After several fits and begins, the Ministry of Transport has veered around to the view that an annual street maintenance fee on motorbikes should be annulled.

Transport Minister Dinh La Thang said at a gathering on Tuesday that his ministry will work with the Ministry of Financing on the proposal to the federal government, recommending that the annual charge on motorbikes should be cancelled.

At the interacting with organised by the transport ministry and attended by officials of the finance and planning and investment ministries, Thang said the two ministries shall propose amendments to Decree 18, that was issued in 2012 to collect fees on motor vehicles.

But the road-maintenance charge on trucks and cars will remain, Thang said.

Under Decree 18, the street maintenance charge on vehicles will be collected when the vehicles are registered and remitted directly to the National Account for Road Maintenance.

The collection was left by it of motorbike fees to the discretion of local specialists, who would use a portion of it for maintaining local highways then.

However, because the decree arrived to effect in 2013, only a few provinces have began to collect this charge, and many more have been hesitant to do so because of level of resistance from motorbike owners.

At Tuesday's meeting, several participants expressed concerns over many areas of collecting the charge on motorbikes, arguing that it should not collected without sociable consensus.

While acknowledging that not collecting the fee would mean that the continuing state Budget would lose a source of revenue, it was said by them would be difficult for local authorities to impose penalties strong enough to enforce compliance.

Insufficient uniformity

Tuesday's meeting of the ministries occurred after two central provinces waived the fee last week.

Da Nang City decided to temporarily stop charge collection last Tuesday and was followed by Khanh Hoa Province a day later.

These moves were interpreted by many as a sign for removal of the charge on a national scale.

Also on Tuesday, in a meeting with voters in Ha Noi, Mayor Nguyen The Thao pledged to consider waiving the fee for motorbike owners.

When a few of the voters cited Da Nang and Khanh Hoa and asked him why Ha Noi should not follow suit, Thao said the waiver proposal was a "good notion worth consideration."

In July 2013 ha Noi began to gather the fee, charging VND50,000 (US$2.5) on motorbikes up to 100cc capacity, and VND100,000 ($5) for those with higher engine capacities.

The dissatisfied voters have been backed by experts as well as Country wide Assembly deputies who've told the federal government that the current situation is unfair.

Tran Ngoc Vinh of the Country wide Assembly's Legal Committee said: "If a locality refuses to gather the fee while another continues to do it, it might be unfair for residents who have to pay". - VNS