The executive for the Fijian Competition and Consumer Commission and head of the Review Committee on Bus Fares, Joel Abraham

There needs to be financial evidence to support the increasing cost of business for bus operators.

The executive for the Fijian Competition and Consumer Commission and head of the Review Committee on Bus Fares, Joel Abraham says other than financial records, the committee needs to assess where bus operators have incurred more expenses.

“To enable me to do that, I need to be able to verify the cost, if the costs have move, if they’ve said that there’s a spike in cost because of changes in the market structure, fuel prices have increased because salaries have increased. We need to be able to undertake reasonableness tests, we need to be able to take analytics to find out what has actually happened to the cost and then ask them the hard questions.”

Abraham adds the proposal to increase bus fares is not being taken lightly and there are many elements to assess.

The Fiji Bus Operators Association claim their businesses are being ruined with no increase in fares in over 10 years.