VietNamNet Bridge – By the end of March, the Road Maintenance Fund collected more than VND1 trillion ($50 million) of road maintenance fees of automobile owners. The fee for motorcycles is not fixed yet. Many transportation companies propose to pay the fee on a monthly basis.
Localities confused on how to collect road maintenance fee from motorbikes
Nation drowning in sea of fees
After three months of collection of road maintenance fees, many transportation companies in HCM City have complained of the fee collection, saying that it makes difficulty for them, especially in the current difficult situation.
According to the HCM City Association of Cargo Transportation, since the fee is collected once a year, along with other kinds of fees like registration fees, making the fee burden heavier on them. Transportation businesses, thus, have proposed to pay the road maintenance fee per month so that they will not have to pay the fee for the month that their vehicles do not operate.
From January 1, 2013, cars and motorcycles in Vietnam have to pay the road maintenance fee. For cars, the lowest fee is VND130,000 ($6) a month for cars of under 9 seats, the highest fee is VND1.04 million ($70) for trucks and specialized vehicles of over 27 tons of payload. For motorcycles, the fee is from VND50,000 to VND150,000 ($2.5-7.5), depending on the decision of the provincial authorities.
According to the Ministry of Transportation, Vietnam can collect more than VND9 trillion ($450 million) of road maintenance fees to upgrade and maintain roads.
Currently, there is over 256,600 km of roads, of which more than 17,200 km of national roads, 23,530 km of provincial roads… However, each year Vietnam has capital to upgrade and maintain of only 1,000 km of national roads, 10,000 sq,m of bridges and some big provincial roads.
M. Lan