Han Ximin

OPERATORS of two bus routes had their licenses revoked for claiming 847,000 yuan (US$121,000) in government subsidies by providing false TransCard documentation.

The operators of bus routes 618 and 662, whose identities were not disclosed, were found to have cheated the city government out of 847,000 yuan in subsidies to the public transport sector over a period of three months by forging TransCard transaction records.

The operators, who had been contracted by Shenzhen Baoluhua Tongcheng Transport Co. to run the bus routes, were also given harsh fines. However, the fine amounts were not disclosed.

The operators were found to have purchased 649 TransCards last December and forged records of transactions which never took place.

Irregularities among bus operators were made public in a transportation bureau report early last month. Transaction records during no-service hours were detected, and transactions of a single card were recorded on different card-reading machines at the same time, according to the report.

Bus routes No. 618 and 662 obtained 55,700 yuan and 792,200 yuan respectively from the government by March 20.

Baoluhua Tongcheng operates nine bus routes, seven of which have been contracted out to smaller businesses.

"It is hard for us to monitor what the contractors are doing," said Weng Tingzhang, general manager of Baoluhua Tongcheng.

Police are investigating the scam.

"The scam is a serious infringement over rights of tax payers in the city and shows government?ˉs loopholes in establishing an effective supervision system,"said Yang Jianchang, an employee of the Luohu District Consumer Council, who is attending the annual session of the Shenzhen Municipal People?ˉs Congress.

Baoluhua Tongcheng was one of the two companies that were severely criticized by Vice Mayor Zhang Siping at a meeting Dec. 6 for refusing to accept payments by TransCard on buses for fear of loss of profits due to the discounts given to cardholders.