The Tribune

By NEIL HARTNELL

Tribune Business Editor

nhartnell@tribunemedia.net

The Government is “standing in the way” of an independent taxi industry, a union leader charged yesterday, renewing his call for it to provide a ‘comfort letter’ that would unlock multi-million dollar financial backing.

Richard Johnson, the Public Service Drivers Union’s (PSDU)president, told Tribune Business that the sector was no further forward than eight months ago, when he announced that the Government had agreed ‘in principle’ to a Heads of Agreement with the nation’s taxi drivers.

This would move the industry from one that is government-controlled to an enterprise owned, and run, by taxi franchise holders, but Mr Johnson said no agreement or ‘comfort letter’ had been forthcoming to-date from the Government.

Critical to the taxi drivers’ plans is establishing a minimum $100,000 valuation for each taxi franchise, but the exercise to confirm such a figure has yet to be undertaken by the accounting firm, Deloitte & Touche (Bahamas).

With 2,500 taxi franchises in existence, Mr Johnson believes that a minimum $100,000 valuation per franchise could make the industry worth $250 million - a value that still needs to be verified.

But, with the Government yet to deliver a ‘comfort letter’ that would provide reassurance to the Bahamian commercial banks and international agencies that Mr Johnson says are prepared to financially support the proposal, the plan remains deadlocked.

In an interview with Tribune Business, Mr Johnson said: “We are at a critical stage. What we need from the Government is an official letter saying they will work with us in a public-private partnership (PPP) arrangement.

“If we can get that, that would help us, as we have the funding. We believe this will impact greatly on the business of ground transportation. Since they’ve already agreed to it in principle, it [a PPP or comfort letter] would give us negotiating strength with our funders.”

Mr Johnson said the PSDU’s initial understanding that Deloitte & Touche (Bahamas) would focus solely on valuing the taxi franchises may have been mistaken, with the accounting firm also working on the jitney sector as part of the Government’s overall plan to reform the ground transportation industry.

He added that he would now be approaching the Trades Union Congress (TUC) to obtain support for the taxi drivers’ initiative from its member trade unions.

And the PSDU president told Tribune Business that, with the TUC’s help, he wanted to “set up a register of all those taxi drivers who are franchise holders” within the next six weeks.

“If Deloitte & Touche is not finished, if we can get something from the Government, that would strengthen our hand in negotiations,” Mr Johnson told Tribune Business.

“Over the next six weeks, we’re going to be dealing with the TUC to mobilise as much support for the union as possible.”

He added: “This is a sector that has to be given the opportunity to become economically independent, as we were 50 years ago, and right now successive governments are standing in our way.

“They’re simply dragging this on. We’ve been dealing with this for the last 18 years. We’ve been trying to get successive governments to back this initiative and do so in a more meaningful way. We can’t seem to make sense of it from the political directorate.”

Mr Johnson said he understood the plan, which would make the Bahamian taxi industry self-regulating under the Taxi Union Partners Group, had the support of the likes of the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB).

He added that timing was now everything when it came to moving forward on this initiative, given the potential jump in business that was likely to occur in nine months’ time with the $2.6 billion Baha Mar resort’s opening.

“All we are asking the Government to do is one, give us this comfort letter saying they officially regard taxi franchises sold as having a value; two, are prepared to support the valuation by having one done by an accounting firm; and three, that we have responsibility for transportation services from Prince George’s Dock, the airport and the hotels,” Mr Johnson told Tribune Business.