Many bus companies in Ho Chi Minh City asked their drivers to tear out unused bus tickets to fake higher numbers of passengers so that they meet the targeted passenger counts to be eligible for State subsidies, a Tuoi Tre investigation has found. The city Transport Department imposes on bus companies much higher targets than reality, so many transporters have tried to survive by falsely inflating the number of passengers, a driver who operates on the Eastern Coach Station- Binh Hung Hoa Market told Tuoi Tre. For example, the driver said, the department sets a target of 21 passengers per trip on the route, but the actual number of passengers is always lower, so drivers have no choice but to tear away a number of unused tickets. “The value of tickets is high, costing us VND500,000 (US$24) per 10 wads, but if we do not tear them, we will not meet the targets and the State subsidies for us will be reduced,” the driver explained. Under the prevailing regulation, for every reduction of 1 percent in passenger volume, the subsidy will be cut down by 1 percent, many transporters said.  The director of a bus company said that under a 2012 contract signed between the company and the Department’s Public Passenger Transport Management and Operation Center, if the company fails to meet the targeted passenger numbers as specified in the contract, it would pay a fine of 5 percent of the total subsidy amount that would be given to the company if the company met that target. Nguyen Ngoc Binh, chairman of the 28 Transport Cooperative, said, “In my opinion, the tearing, if any, can only happen on route 143 as it fails to attract as many passengers as expected.” Meanwhile, Tran Trong Thao, chairman of the Dong Nam Transport and Service Cooperative, said, “Only bus owners and drivers who have wrong conceptions tear unused tickets and make false report about passenger numbers.”       The chairman of the 19-5 Transport Cooperative admitted that some drivers tear out tickets to enhance their own performance. If they meet the target set by the Public Passenger Transport Management and Operation Center, they will be given a bonus of VND700,000-1 million per month. An official from the HCMC Transport Department’s Public Passenger Transport Management and Operation Center, said that the subsidy rate is VND4,320 per ticket and that the tearing of tickets causes a total loss of hundreds of millions of dong everyday.Unpractical targets? The tearing of unused tickets has occurred since the beginning of 2012, when the HCMC Transport Department began setting targets that were raised year after year. For example, the number of passengers was set in the 2012 target at 593 million passengers, 41 million higher than in 2011, and the 2013 target is set at 609 million, meaning 19 million more than last year.   Many transporters complained that such targets are too high. Cao Dang Thuan, head of the operation department of the Saigon Bus One-Member Co Ltd said the targets set by the Center are always higher than actual ones. Another transporter, the 19-5 Transport Cooperative, also lamented that such targets do not match the actual situation, so they are unpractical and unfeasible. A leader of the 28 Transport Cooperative told Tuoi Tre that the Center imposes targets on the principle that the target for a certain year is approximately 5 percent higher than the previous year. According to the HCMC Bus Association, the targets imposed by the center on public passenger transport companies are generally 1.6 times higher than the figures that can be reached in reality.

Yesterday, July 29, the HCMC Transport Department convenced a meeting with concerned parties to clarify the findings by Tuoi Tre. In talking with Tuoi Tre the same day , Duong Hong Thanh, deputy director of the department, said that the agency will conduct inspectionsof activities related to granting and receiving bus subsidies and will punish violations.