Truckers descend on the Palace

A CONVOY of some 300 trucks descended on the Presidential Palace yesterday lunchtime in a protest against liberalisation of the sector.

Truckers caused traffic chaos in an effort to make known their distaste for a recent Licensing Authority decision to lift restrictions which had limited lorry drivers to operating within a single district.

Kyriacos Moustakas, of the Povek union representing truckers, said the abolition of restrictions would mean many of the island’s 12,000 lorry and van drivers would be driven to the wall by the pressures of open competition.

“The Licensing Authority made the wrong decision,” Moustakas said.

He added that the lifting of restrictions would also encourage “everyone and anyone” to take up lorry-driving.

The truckers, many of whom had driven from Larnaca, Limassol or Paphos yesterday morning, handed protest petitions to Presidential under-secretary Pantelis Kouros before driving down to the Communications Ministry to hand a similar document to Minister Leontios Ierodiaconou.

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