DRIVERS BLOCKED THE STREET

A1+
"Tsajg" TV Channel
[08:22 pm] 12 July, 2007
Gyumri

Drivers of private taxi cars in Gyumri organized a protest action in
front of the Shirak regional Municipality. They expressed their
discontent with the Government’s new decision "On Automobile
Transport".

According to that decision, taxi services and the drivers of private
cars should apply at the RA Ministry of Transport and Communications
to get a license and yellow registration numbers for driving right.

Started form 2 August 2007, all taxi services and individual taxi
drivers will be fined with 20 thousand drams if they do not have the
appropriate licenses.

They should pay 200 thousand drams for each car to get a license. It
is a serious problem, particularly, for private taxi drivers, since
200 thousand drams is a great amount of money for the one who earns
for daily living by driving.

The drivers have completely blocked the street, hampering the
traffic. Mikael Vardanyan, Deputy Regional Governor and Marzpetuni
Margaryan, Head of Transport Department convinced the demonstrators
to open the road and continue the discussions in the building of the
Municipality. They offered the drivers to select some representatives
who would be in contact with the municipally employees and promised
to give an optimal solution to the issue.