The Executive Power will convene the bill to regulate the technological platforms for transporting people, such as Uber and the recent company that started operations in the country, DiDi.
This Tuesday, the Minister of the Presidency, Víctor Morales, said that DiDi is urgently necessary for this plan and will therefore be summoned to the extraordinary session this December 1st. In this legislative period, which runs until April 30th, the Presidential House manages the agenda of the projects discussed in commissions and in the Plenary.
DiDi started operations in Costa Rica on Tuesday with more than 5,000 registered drivers to provide private passenger transport services.
Of course, from our point of view this imposes a greater sense of urgency to the legislative process of the bill on transport platforms. It is a project that will be incorporated into the call for extraordinary sessions that the Executive Power will make next week.
We will do the same and take the initiative and do our part, so that together with the legislators we can propose in this period the approval of that file. It is an issue on the list of urgencies of the Executive, because as a society we need to solve this issue,”
said Morales
Taxi drivers are not at all satisfied with the new bill introduced a few weeks ago to regulate the operation of such platforms in Costa Rica and have announced protests. The want the inclusion of a transitory bill that guarantees compensation for 20 million colones -for each taxi driver- for the damages allegedly suffered with the Uber operation (which began on August 21st, 2015).
In the country there are about 12 thousand formal taxi drivers. Since Uber began operations in the country the situation of the sector changed radically. Today, the US capital company says it has 22,000 drivers and a number of users close to 783,000. That is, almost double the taxi drivers operating under state concession.