BEIRUT — Employees of the Traffic and Vehicles Management Authority announced a “forced stoppage of work and a warning strike this week” until all their demands are met, their syndicate said in a statement Tuesday, relayed by the state-run National News Agency.

The employees cited a delay in the payment of their salaries and poor working conditions.

“Since we are currently suffering from a delay in disbursing our salaries, which do not exceed $190 and our affairs are constantly obstructed and at every opportunity,” the statement from the employees said.

Vehicle registration and mechanical inspection centers in Lebanon have faced multiple closures amid the country's ongoing and multi-faceted crises. Many of the closures have been a result of public sector workers going on strike to protest below-poverty wages, as well as judiciary procedures on alleged corruption, that led to the arrest of dozens of employees.

The employees called on the state to “find a legal formula through which the employees at the Authority obtains a fixed, fair percentage of what the Authority collects from '' the citizens registering their vehicles or carrying out any transaction at the Authority.

The delays in procedures related to vehicle registrations has been highlighted once more earlier in May, as caretaker Interior Minister Bassam Mawlawi had launched a security plan, implemented by the Internal Security Forces (ISF), in Beirut and its suburbs and targeting the circulation of illegal motorcycles and vehicles (such as those with missing license plates, those lacking the correct registration and licenses, and those reported stolen).

The security plan, under which a large number of vehicles were seized, has been widely criticized, as many motorists and motorcyclists have been unable to get their papers in order in recent years due to repeated and sometimes extended closures of the vehicle registration centers and the backlogs these closures create.

The other issue at the root of these closures involves a dispute between the Traffic Management Center and Inkript, a company specializing in IT security for governments and financial institutions. Inkript has worked with the state for the past seven years. The Parliamentary Committee of Public Works accused the company last week of not having a contract. These accusations were rejected by the company's management.