Road maintenance fee must be transparent: Expert

Nguyen Vo Lieu, Former General Secretary of the Vietnam Automobile Transportation Association and a member of the committee that created the road maintenance fund, tells Tuoi Tre that the collection and spending of the fee ought to be transparent so that people will be willing to pay.

What does the law say about raising funds for road maintenance?

The 2008 Road traffic Act says road maintenance has to be covered by the budget, annual fees, and a surtax stipulated by the government in case of need.

But the last can only be done following a scientific study that is acceptable to people.

So, what we are trying to do by collecting fees on every vehicle being registered is unscientific since the actual number [on the roads] may be higher than in the records.

What do you think about the two methods of collecting money for the road maintenance fund?

I think the plan to collect a charge on fuel is the most convenient, but it needs reorganizing the gasoline supply system. That is not an easy task.

The implementation of this plan without a new distribution system will mess up the process of refunding those who do not use gasoline for transportation.

In other countries, if people want to add road maintenance fees to fuel prices, they must have two separate systems: One selling to vehicles and the other for other purposes. Gas stations on transport routes are meant only for transport purpose. We need to consider this model.

The fee imposed on gasoline should not be the proposed VND1,000 since people may question the basis for it. It can vary depending on actual circumstances.

But the fee mechanism based on number of vehicles is unreasonable though it will fetch a certain sum without much effort.

People will question the fact that they may have bought a new vehicle but in a year drive just the distance someone else may drive in a month but have to pay the same fee.

Collecting (The fees) along with the insurance premiums is also unrealistic since not all car and motorbike owners buy insurance for their vehicles.

Since both methods seem impossible, the ministry should do field surveys and come up with a more realistic plan.

Do you think the toll proposed by the ministry is too high?

What people care about is being informed about the basis for the fee calculation. It is absent now.

I think we need funds to maintain roads but the rates should be very transparently calculated.

According to the Ministry of Transport, collecting fees for the road maintenance fund will eliminate toll booths. But many fear that things are moving in the opposite direction …

The removal of toll booths is not an easy task since the roadmap for eliminating them is also drawn by the Ministry of Finance to ensure investment in roads from the state budget is recovered.

But the removal also pave the way for investors to set up their BOT toll stations right on the removed stations since most of them was installed on roads with heavy traffic.

Once the road maintenance fee is in place, toll stations should only be installed on quality roads allowing fast travel. There should also be other kinds of roads of different quality standards for choice of transport.

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