Shirak Drivers are Ready to Become Georgian Citizens

Shirak marz (province) drivers of cars with Georgian plates are demanding and expecting from the RA authorities a swift response in resolving their issue. During a press conference in Gyumri today, the drivers said they’re ready to get off the streets and participate in negotiations, in any format.

“Concerning amendments made by the National Assembly to Customs Code Article 38, we cannot wait for the proper response toward resolving our problems any later than Feb. 28,” reads the statement the group presented at the press conference.

According to them, not having a proper response for them means lacking an alternative.

“In this case, we’re going to take extreme measures, including, in order to ensure free movement of our vehicles, appealing to Georgian authorities, requesting they grant us Georgian citizenship and so on,” said the drivers.

“We consider these violations of our fundamental rights under the RA Constitution to free movement and free expression to be perverse unlawfulness, which has taken place through the permission and orders of higher-up officials currently unknown to us. During all these unlawful actions, no police officer could provide an articulate explanation to our, journalists’, MPs’ and civic workers’ questions. It’s been said, ‘no comment,’ or ‘it’s an order, we’re fulfilling it,’ or ‘it should be like this’,” they said.

Recall, local car owners have been protesting since Feb. 5 against the abolition of a legal loophole that has allowed them to pay significantly lower import taxes.

Under the existing Armenian legislation, a car owner has to pay customs and value-added taxes worth 32 percent of the market value of their imported vehicle in order to obtain license plates. Cars registered abroad have until now qualified as “temporary imports” and been exempted from these duties, reported RFE/RL’s Armenian service.

Many Armenians have for years made use of this loophole by registering their cars with road police in Georgia, where import tax rates are considerably lower than in Armenia. The practice was especially widespread in the country’s northern regions bordering Georgia. It was also not uncommon among luxury car owners in Yerevan.

The Armenian government abolished the “temporary import” arrangement in August. The decision meant that the owners of such cars had to register them with the Armenian road police and pay hefty taxes by Feb. 5.