Friday, 11 June 2010 23:48 Myo Thein
Rangoon (Mizzima) – Cargo truck tonnage checkpoints are demanding exorbitant penalties from weight violators but the department concerned is failing to take action against them despite repeated complaints, drivers and transport operators say.
The penalties should be calculated on how much excess weight the trucks are carrying over tonnage regulations based on measurement by machines at toll gates or checkpoints. The checkpoints charged trucks by visually estimating the excess tonnage without using their industrial scales.
On top of that, the offenders charged for an extra seven to 10 tons more than their actual non-machine estimation, the truck drivers said.
“We could not make any complaint after they judged our tonnage by just looking at our trucks. They acted arrogantly and became very aggressive when we complained,” a driver said. “When we insisted on them using weighing machines they put … larger loads on our vehicles to make sure the tonnage would reach three to four tons more than the actual weight.”
There are four such checkpoints at entry points to Rangoon owned by the Rangoon City Development Committee (RCDC): the Indagaw checkpoint on the Rangoon-Mandalay highway, Hmawbi and Danyingon checkpoints on the Rangoon-Pyi highway and the Hlaingtharyar checkpoint on the Rangoon-Pathein highway.
Though these checkpoints are owned by the RCDC, their management is auctioned off to private operators. Highway trucks have to pay similar penalties to the private companies that built the highways on a BOT (Build-Operate-Transfer) basis, but these firms use digital machines so that there are no discrepancies in vehicle tonnage.
Only the municipality-owned checkpoints were overcharging in such a blatantly corrupt manner, sources said.
“The same truck running on the same route had three different tonnages at three checkpoints. It’s unfair,” a transport operator from Bayint Naung Commodity Exchange told Mizzima. “A cargo truck from my cargo terminal carried rice from Pathein. Its tonnage was just 46 tons at Bo Myat Tun and Hlaingtharyar checkpoints owned by Asia World with slight differences after the decimal point. But it weighed 57 tons at Hlaingtharyar No. 4 checkpoint owned by the municipality. They overcharged us for 11 tons.”
“The driver complained by saying that his actual tonnage was just 46 tons at the previous checkpoints but the officials dismissed his protest, saying they had their own scale and that he must accept what it showed, he said.
“But in fact they just estimated our car tonnage. If we insisted they weigh our truck on their weighing machine, it would [probably] be more than the previous measurements. I’ve had two such experiences before,” the driver said.
The permitted gross weight at municipal checkpoints is 20 tons. The overweight penalty is 300 Kyats per ton for up to gross weight of 40 tons and 350 Kyats per ton for more than 40 tons. For instance, if the gross weight of the truck is 50 tons, the first 20 tons overweight will be charged at 300 Kyats per ton so the penalty will be 6,000 Kyats. The remaining 10 tons will be charged at 350 Kyats per ton, making that portion’s penalty 3,500 Kyats and bringing the total penalty to 9,500 Kyats.
The cargo truck operators association has lodged complaints with the RCDC for overcharging their trucks, sources said, but the municipal body has failed to take any action against officials at these checkpoints. Hlaing Tharyar No. 4 checkpoint is the most notorious as it had been named in the most complaints.
Regarding other checkpoints that have received lesser complaints, a truck operator on the Rangoon-Pyi route explained: “The trucks running on Rangoon-Mandalay, Rangoon-Upper Burma, Rangoon-Pyi-Aunglan and Rangoon-Arakan (Rakhine) State are not facing as many problems as the trucks on the Rangoon-Irrawaddy Division highways. The trucks on the former routes run just three to four trips a month at the most. But the trucks on the latter route … make 15 to 20 trips a month as they have to sometimes restart their trip on the same day – they can’t bear such overcharging.”
“A co-ordination meeting was held at Town Hall in December 2007 attended by municipal body, truck owners and officials from these toll gates and checkpoints. The RCDC promised to take action against errant officials and to replace their weighing machines with digital machines,” a Rangoon-Pathein truck operator said.
“But the situation has remained not yet been changed and it is as usual throughout this period,” the operator said. ‘Sometimes we lodge complaints against them when the situation gets worse but we received only ire from these errant officials. The same people got the same toll gates … at auction so we are still facing the same problems – No. 4 checkpoint is the worst.”
The Hlaingtharyar No. 4 checkpoint is currently only estimating the excess weight. Officials there determined the tonnage of six-wheeled truck at between 57 and 58 tones and charged an average 12,000 Kyats in penalty. Many drivers on the Rangoon-Irrawaddy route have complained.
“This problem is caused by the city’s weakness. It sets the floor price at auctions each year at the winning price of the previous last … Therefore the successful bidder tries to recoup his ‘investment’ by all available means, which is beyond their mandate and authority,” a retired city revenue officer said. “The municipal body can’t take effective action against them as they have close links with the authorities concerned and ‘officially’ won in the auction.”
The Ministry of Construction issues orders on allowable tonnage for vehicles on highways according to standards set by Asean. The permitted tonnage for trucks running on the Rangoon-Mandalay highway is a maximum of 60 tons for 10-12-wheeled trucks.
Friday, June 11, 2010
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