Deterioration of roads caused by overloaded vehicles cost taxpayers $50 million in 2021

The Fijian Government has revealed that the deterioration of roads caused by overloaded vehicles cost taxpayers around $50 million last year alone.

It says to keep our roads in good condition, they will continue with the Air-bag Trailer assistance to subsidise the purchase of air-bag suspension systems for trucks.

The Government says air-bag suspension systems put less strain on infrastructure by preventing deterioration by evenly distributing the weight of truckloads.

$300,000 has been allocated for this initiative for the 2021/2022 financial year and people can access a grant of up to $20,000.

The Government says application forms to apply for assistance will be made available and can be submitted at any of the Land Transport Authority offices.

Fijivillage has sent questions to the LTA on what they are doing to address this issue of overloaded vehicles and how often are their teams on the ground to monitor this.

We have also asked how many drivers were fined for driving overloaded vehicles in 2021. LTA is yet to respond to our questions.