Macau (MNA) – The chairman of the 1st standing committee of the Legislative Assembly (AL), legislator Vong Hin Fai, said on Wednesday that the Macau government agreed to reduce the MOP30,000 (US$3,714) fixed amount sanctions concerning the duties of the taxi license holder to MOP9,000.
According to Vong, the bill would follow Traffic Law regulations allowing the fine amount to be reduced by a third if the person sanctions pays it upon 15 days of being notified, which effectively means that in case the recipient follow this requirement, the sanction was then reduced from MOP20,000 to MOP6,000.
The 1st standing committee held its first meeting since the AL break today, with the government submitting a revised taxi draft bill for evaluation and with only the first 10 articles of the bill being covered in this session.
According to Vong the price reduction was a suggestion by the committee to the government, with society and the majority of the committee members said to consider that the charged amount was “too high” and with the amount also being fixed, without minimum or maximum amount provided.
“Some committee members suggested they should be reduced to MOP1,000, others MOP6,000, others MOP9,000. Some said the amount shouldn’t change but most thought MOP30,000 is too much” the committee chairman indicated.
Under the previous taxi bill proposal infractions to taxi license holder duties include modifying or damaging the taxi vehicle taximeters, GPS or sound recording devices; or failing to make the taxi fare list visible to passengers among others.
However, infractions involving higher amounts, such as MOP90,000 fine for providing transport services without a taxi vehicle license per example, were not said to not have been changed.
After the committee meeting Secretary for Transport and Public Works Raimundo Arrais do Rosário and while summarising the government works failed to touch the fine reduction subject to the media.
However, the government remained inflexible concerning other previous proposals by the committee, such as including video recording devices inside taxis or imposing more regulations for shareholders to transfer quotas to each other.
The majority of the committee members were said to have requested that apart from GPS and sound recording, installing video recording devices in the taxis should be mandatory for license holders, however the government still refused to add this amendment.
Committee members also believe there should be more supervision of the transfer of shares between shareholders of the companies that will bid for taxi licenses, with the government opposing any restrictions.
“In the future there will be an eight year exploration period after wining a taxi license public tender, we suggested a limitation for transferring shares until 60 per cent [of the company], above 60 per cent should it require government authorisation,” Vong indicated.
According to the Secretary for Transport and Public Works, the government expects to conclude the bill revision after two more sessions and then submit it to voting at the AL.
