Road tolls are just highway robbery
- Source: Global Times
- [20:57 March 09 2010]
- Comments
It has been reported that in two or three years China may exceed the US in total length of highways, giving it the greatest length of highways in the world. Many Chinese hearing this will immediately ask "When will highway tolls be removed?"
Construction fees for Chinese highways are normally paid for by loans, but the problem is that almost every highway continues to charge tolls even after these are paid off.
A well-used highway is a cash cow; local governments give tacit agreement to this behavior, showing that they think of them as profit-making schemes, not public services.
Given China's current stage of development, perhaps we can't expect all public services, like education, transport and medicine, to be free, but it's fair to expect the government not to profit from them, either.
Many officials haven't grasped the concept of public service. For example, high housing prices are the top of the political agenda, and nobody is opposing reducing them.
But if local governments continue to depend on selling land to make money, prices will never drop. As for low-income housing projects with government subsidy, it looks like few local officials are interested.
When we see the annual increase in spending of 100 billion yuan ($14.64 billion) on administrative expenses, we can't accept the excuse of profiting from public services due to a lack of money.
China Youth Daily
