THE revelation in The Fiji Times (12/08/23) by Vodafone Fiji that e-Ticketing is not financially sustainable shows all the hallmarks of a very bad systems design and investment, where the context of the ultimate user was absent from the very beginning.
If that is not bad management decision-making, it is surprising that there has been no attempt to commission an in-depth review of the e-Ticketing system by the Government, Vodafone Fiji, the development agencies and donor governments that supported the e-Ticketing system or the Land Transport Authority (LTA).
Not even an oversight call for a mid-term feasibility study by Amalgamated Telecommunications Holdings (ATH) and the Fiji National Provident Fund (FNPF), Vodafone Fiji’s shareholders. By the way, FNPF is also the largest shareholder in ATH.
So, if the e-ticketing system is not financially sustainable, does that mean that Vodafone Fiji will opt out, as their five-year contract has ended? Will the other four companies that competed with Vodafone Fiji for the initial tender still be interested, now knowing that there is no money to be made in the current e-ticketing system?
IN 2011 the government launched the eTicketing system for the Central and Eastern divisions and by October 1, 2017, e-Ticketing was made compulsory for bus travel under the branded eTransport initiative.
Telecom Fiji (a 100 per cent subsidiary of ATH) was awarded the initial tender to supply the machines to the buses (at $800 per machine) and Vodafone Fiji was announced as service provider for the e-Ticketing platform and for topup of the bus cards.
In 2017, the industry had 1723 buses and employed about 5000 people. (FT 7/10/17).
Primarily, the e-Ticketing system was designed to serve two purposes: (a) “capture the $5 million … which leaks out of the revenue of bus operators” and (b) “enables government to keep track of the income of these bus companies, thus assisting in the revenue collection process”. (Fiji Government, 2011). This, the system did brilliantly.
The Pacific Financial Inclusion Project (PFIP) implemented by UNDP and UNCDF with funding from the governments of Australia, New Zealand and the European Union, “collaborated with and supported Vodafone in the design, planning and roll out of the e-Ticketing services”. (UNCDF website, 2017). There would have been a sizable mount of investment put in by his project to support the government’s not so well thought out plans and lay claim to digital transformation. It would be interesting to know if a feasibility study was done to determine its financial sustainability and net benefits to the majority of the commuters.
The bus industry is more than 70 years old and although it represented 1.52 per cent of Fiji’s vehicle population in 2017, about 95 per cent of the country’s total population depended on the buses (FT 14/10/17). For any right thinking person, transforming our public transportation system first to ensure it is safe, efficient and serves the public interest, should have been the priority. Even the
Sustainable Urban Transport Index (SUTI) developed by UNESCAP and supported by the government found that in the greater Suva area, bus fleet (30 per cent) are about 70 years old need replacement.” (UNESCAP, 2017). One bus company owner, Ashish Kumar of Raiwaqa Buses Ltd, recently said “the bus industry is a dying industry” … referring to specific challenges such as “heavy regulation, high fuel prices and the last government’s decision to issue about 1000 taxi permits” (FT, 12/08/23).
Well actually, there was some little attempt at that — you be the judge.
The then attorney-general and minister for economy Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum announced that he had met with the then Indian Minister for Railways, Hon Piyush Goyal, and expressed the urgent need for revolutionising the existing Fijian railway network “to not only cart far more cane by rail to the mills, but extend it to transport everyday passengers and cargo” (Government website, 2018).
Interestingly, four years earlier, the then minister for public utilities (water and energy) and transport Timoci Lesi Natuva had announced that “commuters in the Western Division can now look
forward to a new mode of public transportation.
The commuter railroad project to cost $20m will be developed through a proposed investment by the Fiji Sugar Corporation (FSC) to use public service trains on its tramlines” (Government website, 2013). This same government source states that the then “Lautoka special administrator Praveen Bala says the initiative has the backing of his municipality and he looked forward to the introduction of trains in Fiji”.
Ten years on, we have lost $3 billion through wastage, pilferage, inflated projects costs and mismanagement (Biman Prasad, FT) and even paid an LTA CEO, Samuel Simpson of the United Kingdom where he supposedly had experience managing a large bus operation, more than half a million dollars annually (Island Business, 1/03/19).
Yet, our public transportation system is still archaic, the buses that the majority of the population depend on are way past their use by date, we have lost about 1000 bus drivers (Fijivillage 16/04/23) and sadly, but not surprisingly, there is no trains either for the people or the sugarcane!
Since the introduction of the e-Ticketing system, the traveling public has had various challenges, particularly in rural areas. There have been some off-the-mark attempts to solve these challenges, which certainly has not worked.
For instance, in September 2022, a villager from Cakaudrove told the then prime minister Voreqe Bainimarama that “passengers were mostly affected when the e-Ticketing machines ran out of cash … the bus would have to wait outside the shop to allow passengers to top up their cards … delay was linked to the Labasa branch needing to communicate with the headquarters in Suva to top up the machine.”
The then prime minister’s unsurprisingly response was that, “he has directed Vodafone to fix internet connectivity issues because of the impact it has on e-ticketing bus cards, which affects the travelling public” (FT 15/9/22).
This despite the fact that connectivity was not an issue in this specific case, but certainly one of the general issues faced by commuters and bus operators.
Bus drivers have also had their fair share of challenges. By 2019, the Northern Division had recorded fines for 21 bus drivers for contravening the Electronic Fare Ticketing (Omnibus) Regulation 2017 (Fiji Sun, 14/01/19).
However, the famous case that comes to mind is the bus driver in Savusavu, who used his e-Ticket card to pay for a villager’s fare and was slapped with a $1000 fine by the Land Transport Authority (LTA).
The issue stemmed from there being not enough top-up machines, and the machines that were available being out of service. The manager of the bus company, Naisa Tuinaceva, expressed concern (FT 26/08/12).
Mr Tuinaceva was the former CEO of the LTA and is now an member of Parliament (MP) a member of the party that was in government and introduced the e-Ticketing system.
The administration of the e-ticketing scheme has not been efficient and effective either. In fact, the scope of the government’s investigation into eTicketing has only been internal.
The Parliamentary Standing Committee on Public Accounts reviewed the Performance Audit Report on the administration management of the bus fare assistance through e-ticketing for school students, disabled and elderly. It found that “there were inconsistencies between the records maintained by the ticketing service provider and the Ministry of Education” and the “Department of Social Welfare did not have any mechanism within its processes which related to exit of recipients from the bus fare assistance programs for senior citizens and persons living with disability.”
All seven recommendations in the fifty-four (54) page report points towards Government departments to make the system efficient. (Parliamentary Paper No 31 of 2021). Nothing about the e-Ticketing system itself or Vodafone Fiji. Although, Vodafone Fiji is referred only once in the report and thereafter referred as “external stakeholder”, and “the sole service provider of e-ticketing service machines and top-up platforms”.
So, after six years of phased introduction and five years of full implementation, our sole service provider of e-Ticketing machines and topup platforms, says that it is not financially sustainable.
Will we need to park our government sensationalised, donor backed, public fund invested, thought to be revolutionary e-ticketing system, as another lesson learned? It would seem that the e-Ticketing system has been serving its primary purpose and only benefited the bus owners and the revenue arm of the government.
Vodafone Fiji and the people (workers, employers and travelling public), directly and indirectly through FNPF, may have got short-changed and double charged in this so-called digital transformation, that actually missed the bus.
The Fiji Times reported last week that the LTA had given an ultimatum to Vodafone and its chief financial officer Salman Khan said a response would be given by the company this Wednesday.
• EDWARD BERNARD is a regional development consultant specialising in private sector/ MSME development and disaster assessment and recovery.
He has completed his Masters in Business Administration from the University of the South Pacific and has more than 20 years of experience working for the United Nations, Fiji Government, University of the South Pacific, Fiji National University and private sector.
