People can now top up their own eTicketing cards. This was after Attorney-General and Minister for Economy Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum launched two e-ticketing vending machines in Suva yesterday.

“You will find these machines very common in various countries in the world. These machines are quite good,” Mr Sayed-Khaiyum said.

“What we want to do is that we want everybody to get access to electronic transactions to make life easier for you.

“By having eTicketing cards it will help the Government know which route, which areas more people get on the buses on a daily basis.

“In some buses you have a lot of people in the buses so we can talk to the bus companies to give more buses on that route.

“It gives us a lot of information that helps us to plan. What we want to do is of course get these vending machines throughout Fiji and not just in the bus stands.”

Do not abuse cards: A-G

Mr Sayed-Khaiyum has also urged students and parents not to misuse eTicketing cards.

It was found that parents were using the Blue eTicketing cards while students were selling theirs to get money.

“We still find some people who abuse the eTicketing cards in particular students,” he said.

Mr Sayed-Khaiyum added that the Ministry of Education spends more than $20 million a year to subsidise students fares.

Operate 24/7

Vodafone Regional chief executive officer Pradeep Lal said:” We have brought this to Fiji which will be 24/7 in operation so this will allow people to come and top up at any time

“Its trialing  and testing took us about four months before we were able to go live today.

“This is quite an expensive project and we will closely monitor the performance of these machines, the users acceptance before we can embark on new places, or if the traffic is high then it definitely justifies to put another machine and we will do that.

“The whole project has cost us over $3 million and that is for the 10 machines.”

The Sigatoka, Lautoka, Ba and Labasa vending machines will go to go live in two to three weeks.

Mr Prasad said: “We will have staff stationed at the vending machines to assist the public on how the vending machine are to be operated.”

Edited by Ranoba Baoa

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