Provincial admins responsible for transport policies

UNDER the Organic Law, provincial administrations are responsible for developing their own policies, planning and funding projects under the national transport strategy.
The national government only provides grants, including other district funding through provincial and district services improvement and other components.
“We do provide the overarching policies through our national transport strategy that include franchise shipping,” says Sent Raiya, acting assistant secretary for strategic policy development and research division at the Department of Transport
The department’s policy research division does not develop subsidy policies for provincial administrations.
Instead, they have to prepare their own policies aligned with the national transport strategy, Raiya says.
This, he said, would be done in the same manner that national sectors such as transport, health, education and other departments align with central plans (development strategic plan and Vision 2050).
“One of the issues with provincial plans is that they are aligned with their provincial plans/policies including subsidy policies,” Raiya said.
He was responding to a question on whether provincial and district levels already have a policy in place to subsidise transport expenses in their annually budgets.
“Sometimes we do provide technical assistance through planning and policy development,” Raiya said.
“The department does not have a subsidy policy for the provinces, but they will have to prepare it for themselves,” he said. Raiya said the department has a transport subsidy policy, which provincial administrations could implement though their provincial projects sourcing findings either through budgets, DSIP, PSIP or direct funding from the national budget or other sources such as the tax credit scheme.
He said the sector has individual mode of transport subsidy policies but has no overarching subsidy policy/strategy for all modes.
The sector was in the process of developing one such policy and its terms of reference were currently being scoped.
The community water transport (franchise shipping) project, which has been in operation since 2012, is run under a policy but only for the maritime transport sector, he said.
“We do provide the overarching policies through our NTS that include franchise shipping, but do not develop subsidy policies for provincial administrations.
“All provincial administrations need to do is to prepare their policy/plans to align with our national plans/policies,” he said.