Car owners 'screwed over'
- Source: Global Times
- [10:45 December 20 2010]
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By Pan Yan
Car owners in Liuzhou, South China's Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, are up in arms over having to spend almost eight times the national standard price for four screw caps to fix their updated license plates.
The Liuzhou vehicle management authority announced on December 7 that local car owners who received license plates before 2009 needed to buy new screw caps for their plates at a cost of 27 yuan ($4.05). Many local Internet users complained that the new screw caps were the most expensive in history, the Xinhua News Agency reported Saturday.
The Ministry of Public Security ordered a nationwide change to screw caps in 2009, as the new ones are of better quality and can better guard the plates against theft, local Liuzhou Television reported.
Drivers who fail to replace the old screw caps will be fined and lose points on their driver's licenses, the report said.
According to a notice issued by the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) and the Ministry of Finance, each screw cap should be sold at 1 yuan ($0.15) and a set should be priced at 4 yuan ($0.6).
Zhou Xiaoping, a deputy director at the Liuzhou Motor Vehicle Management Bureau, told Xinhua that the price standard set by higher-level authorities was in effect, but that it was the local Motor Vehicle Drivers Association and not the bureau that was the only dealer in the city selling the screw caps.
"As a government department, the bureau needs to follow government regulations, but the association does not have to," an anonymous industry insider told Xinhua.
Yang Zhuangzhi, director of the Liuzhou Price Supervision and Inspection Bureau, told Xinhua that industry associations charging higher fees by monopolizing the market went against NDRC regulations.
Yang also said that the Liuzhou Motor Vehicle Drivers Association has not yet reported its prices for screw caps to the bureau.
The Liuzhou Pricing Administration is investigating the case. The Liuzhou Motor Vehicle Management Bureau was not available for comment Sunday.
