Roughly 100 truck drivers and truck owners staged a demonstration before the parliament building in Cairo on Thursday to protest the government's refusal to extend the grace period during which they are expected to perform safety upgrades on their vehicles.
Drivers of minibuses, meanwhile, which are heavily relied upon for public transport, threatened to join the protest to register their discontent over government plans to raise cargo taxes.
A delegation of drivers has met with Finance Minister Youssef Boutros-Ghali to discuss their grievances. Others, however, refused to suspend their strike, which they maintained for the seventh consecutive day.
The Finance Ministry had earlier agreed to drivers' demands to cancel a retroactive cargo tax increase–from LE18,000 per year to LE20,000 per year–as of 2005.
Translated from the Arabic Edition.
