While residents complain that the investor of HCM City’s Phu My Bridge is collecting tolls from motorbikes, the Transportation Minister claimed that people should sympathize with the investor.

While residents complain that the investor of HCM City’s Phu My Bridge is collecting tolls from motorbikes, Minister of Transportation Ho Nghia Dung claimed that people should sympathize with the investor.

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Talking with the press on the sidelines of the ongoing National Assembly session, the Minister noted that Vietnamese laws don’t stipulate whether or not to collect tolls from motorbike drivers.

“Perhaps it is complicated to collect tolls from motorbike drivers while the toll is low, so BOT (build-operate-transfer) investors don’t collect this kind of toll. I will discuss with the HCM City People’s Committee about the proposal of Phu My Bridge’s investor,” he commented.

The Minister said that under the Ministry of Finance’s regulations, BOT investors can collect tolls of 1.5 to 2 folds higher than those collected by the State so that they can retrieve their capital within a certain period of time.

The BOT investor of Phu My Bridge recently complained that current tolls collected from cars is not enough to pay its loans and asked HCM City authorities’ permission to collect tolls from motorbikes. The investor asserted that motorbike drivers benefit in terms of money and time by using the bridge, saving around 10,000 dong/time.

This is the first time an investor has proposed tolls for motorbikes.

The 2.4km Phu My Bridge is the longest crossing the Saigon River.

PV