Public transport group labels as gross injustice gov't's illegal collection of PPV fees

One group representing public transport operators has described as a gross injustice revelations that the government had been illegally collecting licensing fees, pointing to the numerous men and women who would have been fined or jailed for not paying them.

"Can you understand the hundreds or thousands of operators who spent day’s weeks, months and years behind bars because they could not pay those fees!" argued the president of the Transport Operators Development Sustainable Services (TODSS), Egeton Newman.

The Senate on Friday approved the Transport Authority (Validation and Indemnity) Act to protect the government from lawsuits after it was revealed that it had been illegally collecting licensing fees for almost 30 years.

"And without an apology for such gross injustice we were slap with a 80 per cent increase in licence fees," Newman added as he also took a swipe at the announcement of an increase in licensing fees for hackney carriages and route taxis.

The TODSS president decried what he described as the sharp increase at a time when public transport operators have been lobbying government for a fare increase, but with little success so far.

"While we understand that there has not being an increase in fees over six years and one was due, not in our wildest dreams we would expect to see such a high increase without any form of consultation with the sector, despite ongoing meetings with the minister and his technocrats including the Transport Authority," Newman lamented in a statement issued yesterday.

The TODSS is demanding an explanation from Transport Minister Robert Montague for the sudden and sharp increase in fees.