Commission takes road authority to court over fees, data

The National Business

The Independent Consumer and Competition Commission (ICCC) has filed court proceedings against the Road Transport Authority (RTA) for not producing the data used to calculate increases in the road traffic fees and charges.
According to ICCC, on May 31, 2018, RTA released a public notice on Pg14 of The National announcing new road traffic fees and charges to come into effect on June 1, 2018.
ICCC was concerned about the new fees and charges based on the following:

  • The financial impact on commuters and vehicle owners;
  • RTA’s lack of meaningful consultation with relevant stakeholders, ICCC being one of them, before implementation of these fees and charges; and,
  • The new fees and charges were excessive and would be unaffordable for the majority of the commuters and vehicle owners.

ICCC also received complaints from the public about the increase.
The commission looked into the complaints by consulting RTA to establish how the authority decided on the fees and charges and review them to determine whether the calculations were reasonable.
If the review found the new rates unreasonable, ICCC intended to liaise with RTA to stop the implementation of the new fees and restart the process of setting new fees with discussions with the commission.
Following the changes, ICCC wrote to RTA requesting information about the increases.
After RTA failed to respond to ICCC’s request, ICCC issued a statutory notice on Oct 29, 2018, requiring RTA to provide the following by Nov 18, 2018.

  • Justifications for the increase in fees and charges;
  • the data set used to calculate the increases; and,
  • The methodology used to calculate the increases.

RTA provided information relating to justifications for the increase and the methodology used to calculate the increases.
ICCC extended the due date to Dec 14, 2018, for RTA to provide information relating to the data set used to calculate the increases, however, the authority failed to comply.
On March 7, ICCC filed court proceedings against the RTA for allegedly breaching Section 128 of the ICCC Act by failing to produce the data used to calculate the increases.
Appearances and submissions were made in the District Court and the court is set to hand down its ruling on Thursday.
The ICCC stated that it would inform the public of the outcome of case following the court’s decision.