Yet another glitch for Bulgaria’s ‘e-vignette’ road tax system
At the close of a month that has seen numerous problems with the introduction of Bulgaria’s electronic road tax “e-vignette” system, there has been yet another hiccough.
In a notice on its website on January 31, Bulgaria’s Road Infrastructure Agency said that at the moment, “e-vignettes” could be bought only via the website bgtoll.bg, the mobile app, self-service terminals and cash desks of the regional offices of the agency.
For “technical reasons”, the e-vignettes could not be bought via the national service provider with which the Road Infrastructure Agency had concluded a contract to distribute them.
Efforts were being made to fix the problem as soon as possible, the agency said.
The announcement came a day after Regional Development Minister Petya Avramova announced the appointment of former Lovech governor Georgi Terziiski to head the agency, succeeding Svetoslav Glosov who stepped down at the beginning of January, at the request of Prime Minister Boiko Borissov, over the debacle around the e-vignette system introduction.
Glosov and other top officials were made to walk the plank after the first days of January saw chaos in the introduction of the system, including a lack of self-service terminals and sales points at Bulgaria’s border checkpoints and major motorways.
Urgent work was begun to distribute self-service terminals and open cash points for the sale of the e-vignettes.
The end of January 2019 sees the expiry of many of the previous hard-copy form of “vignette” road tax stickers. The agency reminded motorists that hard-copy vignettes remain valid until their scheduled date of expiry, irrespective of the introduction of the new system.
(Photo: Road Infrastructure Agency)
