A number of transport companies brought their minibuses and buses in the central square of Chisinau on Thursday. With the horns on, the drivers protested against the Ministry of Infrastructure and Regional Development’s initiative to amend the legislation in the field. More exactly, the carriers consider that the representatives of the authorities intend to take away their businesses and to divide these between them, while the people will remain without transport as the not really profitable routes will disappear, IPN reports.
The carriers leveled criticism at the new Transport Code that was approved by the Cabinet on Wednesday. The consultations with representatives of the transport sector were mimicked, while the approved provisions are not the discussed ones and no consensus was reached over them. Moreover, the authorities misled them by saying that particular provisions are no longer in the bill, but they ascertained a different situation after this was adopted.
Oleg Alexa, head of the Board of the Employers Association of Road Transport Operators, said that there are MPs who are beneficiaries of this bill and their intention is to deprive them of businesses and to take these over. “After yesterday’s decision, we demand that the Cabinet should urgently withdraw this bill and oblige the Ministry to align itself with the principles of the European legislation and to leave these raider, corruption intention with this Vîlcu-Andronache grouping. They should start work and do as they do in Europe. Not we, the carriers, oppose the harmonization of the legislation with the European one. The European legislation hampers them as it does not allow resorting to stratagems,” stated Oleg Alexa.
Anatolie Munteanu, executive director of the Employers Association of Transport Professionals “Carrier”, said that the carriers came together to express their disagreement with the way in which the Code was approved and with the content of the amendments pushed by the Ministry of Infrastructure. “Practically, the draft Code is an amalgam of all kinds of methods, schemes for the government to make money swiftly, but the citizens will suffer as a result. As you see, we, the carriers working on regular routes, transport not the richest sections of the population,” stated Anatolie Munteanu.
In connection with the protest, Minister of Infrastructure and Regional Development Andrei Spînu said that he attentively followed the messages transmitted by several carriers that under Plahotniuc subjugated the road transport sector by fraud when obtaining permits and legislative amendments to suit them. “Besides many lies and accusations, we haven’t heard anything about the way in which they want to change the situation to the better in road passenger transportation,” stated the minister.
“What do these protesting carriers suggest? They have only one proposal – not to change things. They want to daily ask money from drivers for giving them that permit to run. They don’t want to invest in modern transport. They don’t want to respect the plan of routes for which they have a permit. They want not to give tickets to passengers. They want to prevent the opening of new routes even where these are requested by the people and the local public administration. It should be clear that this will not work. We will make changes to the Road Transport Code as these changes will ensure better and more modern transport for the people.”
The Cabinet on Wednesday adopted a bill that ensures greater flexibility on the bus services market. From now on, the local public authorities will be able to decide to open or modify regular passenger routes. The local public authorities will be able to intervene in the process of opening and modifying particular routes, regular routes. Changes to the schedule of routes could be made outside the preset period, offering increased flexibility and passenger-oriented services. So far, the changed for inter-district transport were made once a year.
