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What’s causing the shortage of license plates in the country?
This is the question that the Senate Blue Ribbon Committee plans to answer as it investigates a company that bagged a lucrative contract to supply license plates to the Land Transportation Office.
LTO spokesman Jason Salvador earlier conceded the agency is running out of license plates as the stricter enforcement of the law against unregistered vehicles has reportedly triggered a surge in vehicle registration.
He said since the “no registration, no travel” policy was implemented on April 1, new vehicle registration has jumped from 50-100 to 500-800 a day. In Metro Manila alone, there have been 14,000 applications for license plates just for April.
Sen. JV Ejercito said the Blue Ribbon investigation will focus on whether JKG and Power Plates joint venture, which bagged the license plate contract, had the capacity to meet the increased demand for license plates.
“Baka inaantay nila mag release ng pondo ang LTO and then they will pay their supplier kaya nagkakaroon ng delay,” he said in a radio DZMM interview.
He said Power Plates is also accused of forging a government order that allegedly allowed them to issue and sell commemorative plates.
The Senate Blue Ribbon committee hearing is scheduled on Thu, May 21. (dzMM)
This article has been re-published with permission from ABS-CBNnews.com.
