That was the reaction from some Members of Parliament (MPs) after being told that there would not be any fare concessions granted to polytechnic students and the disabled this year.
Several MPs had made a case for extending fare concessions on public transport to the two groups during the Ministry of Transport's (MOT's) Committee of Supply debates in Parliament on Wednesday.
MP Alex Yam (Chua Chu Kang GRC) said that one of the oft-quoted explanations for why poly students are not granted concession fares is that they, together with full-time undergraduates and other diploma students from approved tertiary institutions, are classified as tertiary students.
Their counterparts in junior colleges and Institutes of Technical Education (ITEs) are considered non-tertiary and are charged concessionary rates.
Mr Yam saw this as an issue of semantics and of administrative pegging, which could be easily resolved by re-classifying poly students into the non-tertiary category.
He said: "As more and more of our students aim for poly education, their choice in education should not become an inequitable one when it comes to transport fares."
Responding, Transport Minister Lui Tuck Yew said that while he was sympathetic to these two groups, he urged MPs to be patient as not all such requests can be addressed immediately or entirely within a single fare revision exercise.
He added that the Public Transport Council (PTC), a government-appointed fares watchdog, has the authority to require public transport operators to comply with the condition to give concessions before it grants them a fare increase.
However such concessions would not be given out this year as there will be no fare adjustment this year.
When contacted later, Ms Lee Bee Wah (Nee Soon GRC), one of the MPs who had asked for the concessions, said: "I am disappointed.
"We can wait for one more year. It's not satisfactory, but we have no choice but to wait."
On the issue of adult fares being used to subsidise concession fares, Ms Lee said that she had read through the annual reports for both SMRT and SBS Transit and noted that the dividends paid out by them to their shareholders per share has been increasing over theyears.
It shows that the two companies do make money, she said, so if they can afford to pay dividends to their shareholders, they can afford to cross-subsidise concession fares too.
Mr Liang Eng Hwa (Holland-Bukit Timah GRC) was also disappointed. He felt that that the two public transport operators could perhaps offer it on their own accord.
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