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Sunday, February 08, 2004
Genove: Road Users Tax benefits
By Rene R. Genove
Isport Lang
The "Motor Vehicles User's Charge" was passed by Congress and implemented three years ago.
Every year the government, through its Land Transportation Offices nationwide, collects vehicle registration fees from motorists. The function of the law is to provide funding for the rehabilitation of roads in the country by creating a separate collection facility. The beneficiaries of the collected registration fees by the Land Transportation Office are the motorists and vehicle owners.
The road tax represents 75 percent of the registration fee paid by vehicle owners every year during the renewal of registration. This year, the road tax will total 100 percent. The fees collected by the LTO will be used to rehabilitate national, provincial and city roads.
The Road Board manages the funds as provided for by RA 8974. The members of the board are the secretaries and representatives of the Department of Public Works & Highways (DPWH), Department of Transportation & Communications (DOTC), Department of Finance (DOF), and Department of Bureau Management (DBM).
The Road Board evaluates and allocates the fund for road rehabilitation projects, sets up the bidding and allocation procedures and identifies priority projects.
In Dumaguete, most roads need improvement. These are riddled with potholes that oftentimes accidents occur and some lives wasted. It is time that the City Government must do something to rehabilitate our city roads.
Last Wednesday President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo led the groundbreaking of the Flores Avenue Road rehabilitation project as a major road link to the Strong Republic Nautical Highway and Dumaguete Roll-0n, Roll-off (RORO) Port Project.
The P150 million port development project for Dumaguete City is under the supervision of the Philippine Ports Authority. The project includes the concreting of Flores Avenue and the construction of a passenger terminal and fastcraft berths.
The collected amount from January to December 2002 from vehicle registration was P3.4 billion. Last year (2003) no figures were available as of press time. The money collected from vehicle registration will be used for road maintenance, drainage improvement, pollution control, road safety and education.
According to the study made by the DPWH, the country requires P10 billion in road maintenance alone every year, with an additional amount of P3.4 billion for 10 years for backlogged maintenance costs. With the full implementation of the road user's charge, the road fund will hopefully provide the needed funding of road repairs 10 years after implementation without the need to get it from the national budget.
What happens to the fund now? Where did the P6.8 billion-road user's tax collection money go? Was there any accounting of the funds as of today? Perhaps the DPWH or the LTO can shed light on this query. Isport lang wonders.
(February 8, 2004 issue)
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