Curtain call for road fund

The Ministry of Transport (MoT) has started a training programme about legal documents relevant to the road maintenance fund operations to transport businesses in northern areas to Thua Thien-Hue province.

“We have required each provincial transport department to send at least  three transport businesses in their areas to join the training courses,” said Central Road Maintenance Fund’s chief of Office Le Hoang Minh.

A similar training round the same in content will follow suit in Ho Chi Minh City on December 17, 2012.

Parallel to training activities, a circular guiding management and usage of the fund would be enacted by the MoT no later than December 31, 2012 to ensure the fund’s smooth running, according to Minh.

Earlier, another circular guiding fee collections to the fund (Circular 197/2012/TT-BTC) and relevant decisions on the fund’s organisation, operation and human resources were ratified by the prime minister.

“In principle, all the sum from road users will be treated as to other state budget raising sources, while expenditure will be controlled through State Treasury system,” said Deputy MoT Minister Nguyen Hong Truong.

According to the MoT, if the fund enters into service on schedule the fee amount from auto drivers would reach VND4.5-4.6 trillion ($214-$219 million) every year to channel into road maintenance, a big amount given the fact that total state capital for maintenance of the country’s highway system was only VND2.495 trillion ($120 million) in 2012, tantamount to 40 per cent of actual demands.

“Due to chronic capital shortages, total investment for periodical repairs of some arterial highways including seriously deteriorated National Highway 1 would be VND8.180 trillion ($390 million) in 2013,” said deputy chief of Directorate for Roads of Vietnam Nguyen Van Quyen.

 Besides, the MoT reportedly mulls opening at least 16 toll  stations on highway 1 striving to recoup investment capital for build-operate-transfer (BOT) projects.

In a bid to ease transport firms’ burdens the Vietnam Auto Transport Association would further propose for transport firms to pay road maintenance fees every month, instead of every year or every six month as initially planned, according to association’s chairman Nguyen Manh Hung.

“For big transport firms with hundreds of car units one-off fee payment in a huge sum would challenge firms’ operations,” said Hung.