Premium
The free transport of pupils to schools is impossible to ensure by the road transport companies, due to the muddled reimbursement procedure, a release sent on Thursday by the Federation of Romanian Transport Operators (FORT) shows.
"The free transport of pupils is impossible to ensure, because there is no guarantee in what regards the reimbursement of sums regarding free rides by the passenger transport companies. Guilty of this situation are those who redacted in secret and without transparency the procedure to regulate the reimbursement, regulated by Government Decision no. 435/2020, as well as those persons who tried to attract image capital on the matter. The Federation of Romanian Transport Operators has sent to the Development Ministry an address meant to generate the clarification of the following aspects that neither the pupils, nor the directors of educational units know," according to the FORT release sent to AGERPRES.
On the one hand, the organization decries the muddled provisions of the Government Decision 435/2020, that does not show clearly if the certificates of pupils issued by the educational units are correctly filled in so that the operators can reimburse on their basis the transport services rendered to pupils.
At the same time, the transporters' organization shows that the legal provisions do not mention clearly if the County Councils will decide to reimburse the expenses of transport operators on the basis of presence in class instead of taking into account the number of trips rendered to children by transport operators.
FORT also draws the attention of the Government that the provisions of Government Decision 435/2020 do not impose on educational units the obligation to pay the bills issued by transport operators.
"In this context, the question arises: if an operator issues a ticket or a pass for a pupil (in agreement with art. 7 of Government Decision 435/2020) and transports him for a month at school, at the end of the month will it issue a bill to the educational unit (to reimburse 50 pct of the value of transport) and another bill to the County Council (for the remaining 50 pct)? In both cases is it necessary (or not) to conclude a contract for services (with the educational unit and the County Council) in order to issue said bills? To these questions, it seems that nobody in the Government has answers," the FORT release concludes.
