Penza, 7 April 2015. PenzaNews. The press service of the Penza city administration has finally published an official reply with a clarification on the news that the officials are planning to cut down bus fares as of May 1, 2015. The comment has been published on the administration website in the evening of April 6, after the spokespersons spent the previous day avoiding the topic.

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“Due to numerous media publications on potential cuts of discounted bus fares for certain citizen groups and reduction of discounted bus fares as of May 1, 2015, the press service of the Penza city administration provides a clarification. The only legitimate way for a legal decree of the city administration that requires a publication to come into force is through an official media announcement. As of today, the Penza city administration has no active document that would have accounted for cutting down discounted public commute fares as of May 1, 2015. You can learn more about the legal decrees of the Penza city administration that have come into force by visiting the relevant section of the Penza city administration website or reading the newspaper ‘Munitsipalniye Vedomosti’,” says the message published on the city administration website at 21.05 of Monday, April 6.

However, the message provides no information on whether or nor the decree No. 410/1 dated March 31, 2015, and signed by the mayor Yuri Krivov, exists.

As PenzaNews agency reported earlier, the document would cancel bus fares for several groups of citizens, including war veterans, concentration camp prisoners, the disabled, veterans of labor, Chernobyl representatives, Afghan war veterans, and mothers with many children, as of May 1, 2015, and reduce the monthly allowance of discounted trolley bus tickets from 40 to 32.

According to lawyers, the Penza city administration indeed has published no active document that would cancel the discounted fares, because the very decree No. 410/1 says it would be active only as of May 1, 2015, except the two paragraphs on transportation tickets that would be effective the day after the official publication.