Local Development Ministry stops tuk-tuk licenses: spox

CAIRO – 18 October 2019: Egypt's Ministry of Local Development halted issuing licenses for the three-wheeled tuk-tuks (also known as auto rickshaw), in an effort to replace them with safer minivans that use natural gas, a spokesman for the ministry said.

In an interview with Egypt Today, Khaled Qasem said the ministry takes into account the social aspects while implementing the replacement program, and studies ways to provide alternative employment opportunities for tuk-tuk drivers through the national project for human and community development "Mashro3ak (Mashrou'ak)."

Qasem said the 7-passenger minivan vehicles can now obtain a taxi license.

Being unsafe and unlicensed, tuk-tuks were banned as a means of transportation as per a government decree.

The Egyptian government, chaired by Moustafa Madbouli, ordered tuk-tuk assembling factors to not produce auto rickshaws anymore, according to a statement from the cabinet in September.

The government will buy the tuk-tuks from their owners and give them minivans in return, while the owners will pay the price difference of two vehicles in soft loans, Cabinet Spokesperson Nader Saad told Akher al-Nahar talk show on al-Nahar channel.

The old and withdrawn tuk-tuks will turn into junk, he said, adding that the cabinet will hold a meeting with representatives of tuk-tuk assembling factors to change manufacturing lines for minivans production.

In March 2018, the state-owned Central Agency for Public Mobilization and Statistics (CPAMS) said that the number of licensed tuk tuks in Egypt in the period between 2014 and 2016 reached 99,000 tuk-tuks, noting that the number is increasing. Meanwhile, the number of unlicensed tuk-tuks reached more than 3 million rickshaws.