When the cat's away
THE airport coupon taxi system was supposed to ensure that, upon exiting the arrival hall, travellers would not be bombarded and harassed by dubious traders of transport, charging exorbitant rates, and probably lacking the required passenger insurance. Not surprisingly, though, having a coupon system is not really a guarantee of warding off touts. The problem, airport taxi drivers claim, is that there is no one to catch the culprits. Road Transport Department officers used to do the job quite well, apparently, but they stopped when the Land Public Transport Act 2010 came into operation on Jan 31, after which it was thought that Land Public Transport Commission (SPAD) officers would take over. They did not.
SPAD's enforcement division head says this is because they do not have enough officers, do not have prosecutorial powers and cannot even issue summonses. These are just excuses. Lack of sufficient numbers of enforcement personnel is, sadly, a perennial problem faced by all enforcement bodies in this country. And, because the Federal Constitution confers prosecutorial powers only on the attorney-general, no one is likely to get that anytime soon either. And, although they might not have the power to issue summons, land transport officers do have powers of arrest.
The real problem here is not that there are not enough laws or not enough enforcement officers; it is that the enforcement authorities do not seem to understand the law or how to use it to help, rather than hinder, each other. For instance, even though the SPAD Act 2010 says it is the commission's responsibility to implement and enforce land public transport laws, the Land Public Transport Act (LPTA) did not obliterate the powers of the police or road transport officers from enforcing laws related to land public transport vehicles. What it did do was to add provisions for there to also be land transport officers, to add to the capacity of enforcement officers, not subtract from it. In fact, the LPTA specifically includes road transport officers and the police in its enforcement provisions.
If road transport officers are shy to step into SPAD territory, Section 56(1) of the Road Transport Act 1987 says that a person cannot drive a public service vehicle (as defined by the Land Transport Act 2010) unless that person holds a vocational licence. So, road transport officers could stop touts and at least check whether they have vocational licences. And the police, being enforcers of law in general, could do all of this, too. There are ways. There just needs to be a will.
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