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Wednesday, March 23, 2005
38 Cebu City Hall cars run with null papers
By Rene H. Martel
CEBU CITY -- As City Hall faces thousands of pesos in penalties for the late registration of all its vehicles, Mayor Tomas Osmeña told councilors and department heads to pay the fines for cars assigned to them.
The Land Transportation Office (LTO) imposed penalties on Cebu City-owned vehicles because these were not registered on time-an irony in a local government known for strictly enforcing traffic rules.
The penalties could run as high as 50 percent of the motor vehicle user's charge.
City Hall officials could have avoided the sanction had they submitted smoke emission test results at least a month before the vehicle registration's expiry date.
The General Services Office (GSO) needed that to prepare the necessary vouchers for the renewal.
A check with the GSO revealed that 38 City-owned vehicles were due for registration renewal last month, but only 16 results were submitted to GSO so far.
Fines
Since the test results of the 16 were submitted only in the later part of last month, GSO did not have enough time to process the vouchers for the registration fee.
As of Tuesday, not one of the 38 vehicles' registrations was renewed.
The City already paid P44,150 last March 5 for the registration fee of vehicles assigned to councilors, but it has to pay P20,450 more in penalties because of the delayed renewal.
Sun.Star Cebu learned that all 20 vehicles issued to city councilors are presently "impoundable" after the City failed to pay the late registration fine of P20,450.
LTO gave City Hall until March 15 to settle the remaining amount, but extended the deadline until the end of this month when the local government failed to pay on the set date.
Unregistered
GSO property division chief Mario Mondares said the problem has been there for some time.
In 2003, only 144 of the City's 410 functional vehicles were registered.
The mayor, in a memorandum dated March 7, ordered councilors and department heads to submit their office vehicles' emission test results at least a month before the registration's expiry date.
"Failure to submit the smoke emission test result one month before the expiration date...would mean imposition of 50 percent penalties, which will be chargeable to your personal account," read the memorandum.
The fine for late renewal of registration is 50 percent of a vehicle's basic registration fee, or about P2,000 per vehicle.
Mayor Osmeña noted that despite an earlier memorandum, many drivers still failed to submit emission test results and the corresponding penalties on time.
Demand letter
LTO's Motor Vehicles Inspection Service in Subangdaku, Mandaue City, though, already conducted emission tests on 38 Cebu City-owned vehicles that were due for registration renewal.
LTO Cebu City licensing district head Aleta Pulga, in a telephone interview, admitted the vehicles assigned to city councilors are impoundable.
LTO was forced not to release the official receipt for the registration since the City still has to settle the P20,450 penalty, she said.
Pulga said they would have to issue a demand letter if the City still fails to pay up after that.
Last year, City Hall paid about P3,000 as penalty for each of its vehicles whose registration papers were not renewed on time, said George Neri of GSO.
Except for license plates ending in "0," renewal of vehicle registration is based on the last digit of its license plate number. This means, for example, that those ending in "3" should be renewed in March.
But, Neri said the City also has to contend with the "late middle penalty."
Under LTO's rules, plate numbers whose middle digit in its three-number combination is either 1, 2, or 3 should be renewed on or before the 7th day of the month; 4,5,6, on the 14th; and 7,8,9, on the 21st day.
Failure to comply means a P200 additional payment, Neri said.
(March 23, 2005 issue)
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