[News] Congress passed a law that formalizes the service of "collective taxis" excluding Lima and Callao

[Dark]

The plenary session of the Congress of the Republic debated this Thursday the law that formalizes the service of "collective taxis" throughout Peru for more than four hours and decided to approve it by 115 votes in favor, 4 against and 10 abstentions.

During the debate, Congressman Daniel Olivares said he was in favor of formalizing the service, since otherwise the service will continue to exist. However, he was against the bill because it "backfires the transportation reform in the country." He specified that it should be limited "to places where formal transportation does not arrive."

For his part, Paul García (Acción Po[CENSORED]r) was in favor of excluding Lima and Callao in the law, since "it could generate more vehicular traffic than already exists."

Likewise, the spokesman for Podemos Peru, Daniel Urresti, considered that this is "the first great mistake of Congress" and said he did not understand the legislators who support this initiative, since "they will only generate chaos in the country's great cities."

 

 

“There are thousands who will benefit, but it must be only those who have no other option. What do they want here in Lima? What are we going against the transport reform ?. Large cities should not be included. Do you want to create chaos in big cities? Is that what they want? ”He asked.

The legislator Guillermo Aliaga (We are Peru) had a different position, who indicated that the drivers who provide this service “deserve the support of Parliament” that must be translated by “formalizing them” so that they operate within the law.

In this line, Carlos Enrique Fernández Chacón (Frente Amplio) also manifested himself, who said he was in favor of formalizing the “collective taxis” and confessed that he is a regular user of this informal service “on Avenida Arequipa to reach downtown Lima from Miraflores ”.

 

"I use the collective taxi to go to Miraflores, along the entire Arequipa avenue. I'm sitting down, ”he said.

After the debate, the plenary decided to move to an intermediate room to exclude Lima and Callao from the scope of this legislative initiative, due to the damage it could generate in the transportation reform carried out by the ATU.

Prior to the debate, the Minister of Transport and Communications, Carlos Lozada, said that "collective taxis" are against the transport reform that the MTC has been promoting, in addition to being a service that increases the risk of contagion from COVID-19 .

 

"Due to health issues (collective taxis) they would also not provide the guarantees of being able to control the spread of the virus through these vehicles," Lozada said at a press conference.

He explained that the transport reform in Peru aims to implement a macro-transportation system with units that allow more passengers to be mobilized.