Taxi drivers to go on strike … again

By Andria Kades

NICOSIA taxi srivers announced on Friday a series of strike measures in a bid to pressure authorities to look into concerns they say were voiced for years.

“We called off the strike in July because we were promised, even from the presidential palace, that they would look into the matter,” which concerns the creation of taxi ramps and abolishing the exclusive right of certain drivers to park on Costaki Pantelides and Constantinou Paleologou streets, according to their spokesman Panayiotis Kililis.

Thus far, they have not seen any steps in that direction, hence scheduling a strike on October 20 from 6.30am to 10.30am and for 12 hours on November 3.

Addressing problems taxi drivers face, Kililis said “why should there be buses running at 3am? To take Russians to the clubs? What is this? Even worse, there are 15 to 20 girls in a bus, do you understand what could happen in this case?”

Asked why the girls would not face the same risks in a taxi or what the difference was, Kililis said “of course girls face no dangers in a taxi. Buses are not monitored.”

Their strike on October 20 will block the crossing on Strovolos Avenue and Athalis, the presidential palace roundabout, the Kykos traffic lights and the traffic lights close to the transport ministry at Archeon and Kitolon.

Taxi drivers will then proceed to the centre of Nicosia outside the municipality and Solomos Square.

Their choice of locations are symbolic, Kililis said, representing authorities they have problems with such as the police, municipality, transport ministry and presidential palace.

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