FORT: Students from 19 counties remain, as of today, without free transportation

Students from 19 counties resume classes, starting today, with less money in their pockets, because they no longer benefit from free transport, according to a press release issued by the Federation of Romanian Transport Operators (FORT), which claims that the respective situation was caused by a government decision.

The quoted statement states: "Starting from 08.01.2024, students in 19 counties remain without free transport, as a result of the issuance of a new government decision that should have resolved previous legislative gaps and clarified a number of issues related to making payments to transport operators. Thus, HG no. 1337/2023 regarding the amendment and completion of GD no. 810/2023 comes to completely disrupt the already chaotic situation regarding the granting of travel facilities to students who cannot be educated in their home town".

FORT shows that, in view of the way in which the first Government decision was developed, namely HG 810/2023, which produced effects as early as September of last year, in many counties, including Botoşani, Iaşi, Suceava, Prahova, transporters they did not receive money for the free transport offered to students between September and December 2023.

"We are talking about the counties where the county councils made fun of the public transport service and refused to fulfill their legal obligations for organizing tenders for the assignment of groups of routes through contracts", state the transporters' representatives in the quoted document.

They show that GD 1337/2023 provides in Article II paragraph 2 that "starting from February 1, 2024, in the counties where public transport service contracts are not concluded (...), the county school inspectorate/School Inspectorate of the Municipality of Bucharest can no longer make payments to county road transport operators"

As a result, starting today the students in the respective counties have to pay the subscriptions from their own pockets.

"We mention that the accounts for the free transport for the month of January would have been submitted to the school inspectorates after February 1 for possible payment", the FORT management also sent.

However, according to paragraph 1 of the same article II of the respective normative act, by way of exception, in the counties where, until February 1, 2024, public service contracts for county passenger transport are not concluded according to Regulation (EC) no . 1.370/2007, "the county school inspectorate/School Inspectorate of the Municipality of Bucharest pays for the transport services performed by road transport operators for students, at most at the level of the unit value of lei per kilometer, approved according to the provisions of art. 4 para. (53) from annex no. 2 to Government Decision no. 810/2023".

FORT specifies, however, that the said legislative amendment was not discussed with the transport operators.

The quoted statement states: "Since the new government decision appeared in December, it is not understood in any way from the text of the above article, if the carriers benefit from the collection of the amounts only for the settlement submitted in January, related to the transport insured in December, or retroactively for the September - December period. The new government decision was not discussed with the transport operators who, together with the student associations, notified the Government, since last year, about the serious problems generated by the bad regulations".

FORT representatives claim that the new rules were intentionally drafted to give room for interpretations in order to avoid, by any means, the settlement and granting of free transportation to students.