TAXI drivers across the island will go on a 24-hour strike next Thursday, after a meeting at parliament yesterday left them unconvinced their problems would be solved.
“We met after the meeting at parliament and decided we will go on a 24-hour strike to protest the lack of a response from MPs as well as the minister, starting from 6am on Thursday, July 14,” the spokesman for the taxi drivers’ union, Kyriacos Moustakas, told the Cyprus Mail yesterday.
Urban taxi drivers in particular have been pushing for the government to announce measures that will boost their business, which they say has suffered with the operation of the new transport system, a surplus of licensed taxi drivers and illegal cabbies.
They demand, among other things, an increase in bus fares and cuts on bus routes.
“The bus routes must end by 11pm all over Cyprus and bus fares should increase during the day, especially in tourist areas,” said Moustakas after the House Communications Committee meeting. “The bus system is benefiting tourists and not Cypriots anyway,” he added.
But as Communications Minister Erato Kozakou-Marcoullis pointed out yesterday, Cyprus has the lowest percentage of public transport users in the whole of the EU, with just three per cent of locals using the bus compared to the EU average of 30 per cent.
The aim, she added, is to bring this number up to 10 per cent in the next decade.
Marcoullis announced that her ministry had commissioned a study, expected to be complete by the end of the year, to look into Cyprus’ needs when it comes to taxis in combination with the transport system. She said it was possible a number of taxis may have to be withdrawn, due to the excessive numbers. There are currently over 2,500 taxis in circulation.
Marcoullis was adamant that her ministry’s priority was to upgrade and improve the current transport system.
The ministry, she added, had offered among others to increase bus fares during the evening hours from €1 to €2, as well as cancel the weekly and day passes.
“The ministry has offered a number of proposals to taxi drivers in the hope of finding a balance, but it certainly doesn’t intend to cancel public transport; it wants to increase the number of people that use the bus,” said the minister. “We have the lowest percentage of the population that uses public transport in Europe.”
