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The Land Transport Authority is facing challenges in tackling the issue of illegal rental cars which is becoming a threat to the industry.

Some private vehicles are being rented out by individuals and companies at a much cheaper rate and without any bond and this is affecting the survival of the Fiji Rental Car Association members.

Fiji Rental Car Association Vice President, Shalit Kumar, says hiring private vehicles as rental cars come with risks.

“When there is an accident there is no compensation paid because that’s an illegal business, illegal hiring so this is the message to illegal taxi and rental car operators running private rentals that you need to be careful because you could be causing somebody’s loss and at the same time not get compensated for it so there is a lot of risks.”

Land Transport Authority Chief Executive, Samuel Simpson, says detecting this illegal activity is a challenge.

“Our sister agencies have powers of investigation, LTA doesn’t have any powers over the investigation. We don’t have any investigation arm and it’s often quite difficult to get the evidence that is required to successfully issue a traffic infringement notice.”

The Fiji Rental Car Association is working with the LTA to counter this issue and is forwarding the details of illegal operators with evidence to them.

The Land Transport Authority is expected to sign an agreement with the Fiji Independent Commission against Corruption to share information and intelligence to track down illegal operations.

The Authority is already sharing similar data with the Fiji Revenue and Customs Services.