Mechanical inspection (Mecanique) centers in Lebanon will close their doors due to legal aspects related to their income.
The head of the Land Transport Union, Bassam Tlais, announced: “…We will completely close the sampling centers until the state receives them and adds their funds into the treasury.” The closure will start this Wednesday.
In a press conference held on Monday, Tlais emphasized that the field of mechanical inspection “is the property of the state but, unfortunately, since 01-07-2015, it has been [disorganized] and working without any legal justification.”
He then criticized the Interior Ministry’s lack of response to his six requests for a meeting to discuss the “chaos” that is private vehicles, mentioning fake license plates and “imaginary transport companies.”
Finally, he called for a general strike on July 29th that will be accompanied by protests across Lebanon after another press conference takes place on the 27th to discuss developments.
Notably, the Land Transport Union’s decision to close inspection centers was not appreciated by the founding committee of the Syndicate of Mechanical Inspection Workers.
The committee noted in a statement that the workers are puzzled by the Union’s “insistence to close our workspaces and refrain from transferring its sit-ins and future movements from the front of mechanical inspection centers to decision-making sites such as the Ministry of Interior or the Council of Ministers.”
That is despite the fact that doing the latter would “spare the workers any harm to the continuity of their work” in the company that handles this sector, according to the committee.
The statement added that the workers will not stand idly before any attempt to make them “the hostages of any blackmailing from any party.”
They warned that they will defend the continuity of their work and affirmed that the continuation of the aforementioned sit-ins and protests in the specified locations will inevitably entail a counter-sit-in.
