Should we abandon motorbikes?

If the proposal of the HCM City Department of Transport is approved, from next year, each motorbike will be charged a "road use" fee of VND50,000 to VND150,000 per year depending on the cylinder capacity.

Nearly 6 million motorbike owners in Ho Chi Minh City will soon have to pay road usage fees - Photo: Diep Duc Minh

In fact, Hanoi has implemented this fee collection since August 1, 2013 in 29 districts, towns and cities. With 4.5 million motorbikes, in 2013, it collected 55 billion VND, reaching a rate of about 21%. However, according to the resolution of the Hanoi People's Council, the ward and town levels are left with 10%; the commune level is 20% to cover the cost of organizing the collection. The collection of fees to each household is undertaken by residential groups, and submitted to the ward tax officers. However, the wards must have additional officers to do the statistics and review the collection, leading to a rather cumbersome collection apparatus.

While the amount of money collected is not much, the implementation time and human resources required to maintain toll collection activities are very large.

"It's already included in the gas price, why collect it directly?"

In Ho Chi Minh City, the Department of Transport proposed a tax rate of VND50,000/year for motorbikes with a cylinder capacity of up to 100 cm3 (a decrease of VND10,000 compared to the previous proposal); VND120,000/year for motorbikes over 100 cm3 - 175 cm3; VND150,000/year for motorbikes over 175 cm3; VND2.16 million/year for 4-wheeled cargo vehicles with a single-cylinder engine.

Responding to Thanh Nien, Mr. Bui Xuan Cuong, Deputy Director of the Department of Transport, explained that Ho Chi Minh City is one of three provinces and cities that have not yet implemented road use fee collection for motorbikes according to the Government's decree. Meanwhile, Ho Chi Minh City is seriously lacking in funding for road maintenance and repair, currently only meeting 20% ​​of the demand, especially in suburban areas and rural traffic. According to Mr. Cuong, if the project is approved at the City People's Council meeting in September 2014, the Department of Transport proposes to implement fee collection from January 1, 2015. As of early 2014, Ho Chi Minh City has nearly 5.8 million registered motorbikes. That is not to mention more than 1 million motorbikes from other provinces circulating in the city every day. If the lowest collection rate is 50,000 VND/year/vehicle, each year there will be an additional 290 billion VND for road repair, maintenance and repair.

Meanwhile, local authorities at ward and commune levels have expressed concerns that they will “not be able to handle it all”. Chairman of Da Phuoc Commune (Binh Chanh District) - Mr. Nguyen Van Thanh analyzed: “The commune has about 4,000 households. When the collection is assigned to the commune, if people have any reaction, they will react to the commune, not to the city. Currently, all fees are collected through the people, making it difficult for the commune to implement. Moreover, the commune staff does not have the staff to collect these fees. If they hold concurrent positions, they will not be able to do it. As for implementing this work down to the hamlets and villages, the experience from collecting non-agricultural land use tax has not been successful, because the staff in the hamlets and villages do not receive salaries, but only have living expenses of a few hundred thousand VND/month. If assigned, this force will do it, but if everything is assigned down, I am afraid it will not be able to do it all.”

Mr. Tran Phuoc Hung, Secretary and Chairman of the People's Committee of Phu Huu Ward (District 9), said that so far the ward has only conducted a census of the number of motorbikes in the area to wait for instructions from higher authorities. Although the fee has not been collected yet, during the census, many people questioned the ward officials why they had previously included road use fees in the gasoline price, but now demanded to collect fees directly through the vehicle. Many families have 3-4 motorbikes, so the amount of money to be paid is not small.

The burden should not be placed on the people.

Believing that the cost of organizing the collection of road maintenance fees for motorbikes is expensive and time-consuming while the amount collected is too little, at the explanation session on the Ordinance on Fees and Charges organized by the National Assembly's Finance and Budget Committee last April, many full-time National Assembly Deputies proposed that the Government consider eliminating this type of fee. Because according to the report of the Ministry of Transport, in 2013, the Road Maintenance Fund collected 5,500 billion VND from cars, and the expected revenue from motorbikes was 2,600 billion VND but only 500 billion VND (about 20%). Many opinions said that motorbikes are a popular and essential means of transport for people, if this fee is not of great value, the management and organization costs are too much, not commensurate, should it not be collected anymore.

According to Associate Professor Dr. Nguyen Quang Toan (Hanoi University of Transport), not only Hanoi, many localities that have implemented toll collection have the same situation: the amount of money collected is small, while the cost of the collection system is quite large and complicated. "Collecting road use fees for motorbikes has been stipulated in the law, if we abolish it, we have to amend the law. But instead of abolishing it immediately, we can postpone the collection similar to many unreasonable taxes that cause inconvenience to people, the Government has postponed the collection", Dr. Toan commented.

Traffic expert Pham Sanh said that the results from the project, estimated at only VND300 billion/year for Ho Chi Minh City, compared to the economic scale of the city, are like “a drop in the ocean”. This is time-consuming but does not bring big results. The government should review this.

Dr. Nguyen Van Thu, a traffic expert, also shared that right from the beginning of the implementation, he expressed his opinion that the fee should not be collected from motorbikes. Motorbike riders are usually low-income earners, a large proportion of whom are workers. Not to mention, many people are upset because they have to pay a fee per vehicle, while some motorbikes are used and some are not.

According to Thanh Nien