Taxi drivers were the only ones to provide public transport through two waves of the epidemic, and no one cared about their health.
Now the government has imposed measures on them that practically no other group has, not even drivers in other parts of public transport.
The decree imposes a stricter treatment on bus and coach services than on other public transport stakeholders, allowing them only if the driver of the bus or coach has a negative result for SARS-CoV-2 (PCR or rapid antigen test) that is not older than 72 hours, whereas in other forms of public transport there is NO compulsory testing at all. This is an unequal treatment which has no basis in scientific evidence.
Taxi drivers are in dire straits as a result of the Government's decision, as the mandatory testing, in addition to the stress it causes them, is also a cost that they cannot bear with their income virtually decimated.
The logistical difficulties that taxi drivers have in practice with the tests have also been pointed out, and a call has been made for special arrangements for taxi drivers to be made for the testing dates, but nothing has come of this either.
The Government of the Republic of Slovenia should immediately adjust the content of the Ordinance on Restrictions and Methods of Carrying out Public Passenger Transport on the Territory of the Republic of Slovenia (Official Journal of the Republic of Slovenia, No. 20/2021 of 11.2.2021) and immediately eliminate the unequal treatment of taxi employees.