The Tribune

By NATARIO McKENZIE

Tribune Business Reporter

nmckenzie@tribunemedia.net

ROGUE taxi operators could tarnishing the industry’s reputation according to a union leader who yesterday renewed calls for the industry to become self regulated, telling this newspaper, ”We don’t know who is in the business”.

Richard Johnson, the Public Service Drivers Union’s (PSDU) president, told Tribune Business that renewed calls for the government to provide a “comfort letter” that would unlock the financial backing for an industry which would be run by taxi franchise holders.

“Right now on the books we have close to 3,000 taxi drivers who have been licensed to operate a taxi. Nationwide we have approximately 2,500 taxi franchises with 1,135 of them operating in New Providence. We have rogue operators out there and that type of thing impacts the industry negatively. We don’t know who is in the business. We want self regulation to deal with these rogue operators,” said Mr Johnson.

He added: “We want to be responsible for the ground transportation services from the dock, the airport and hotels so that at any given day we can know who is in the business, who is driving a taxi and that way we can raise the standard and provide the type of service needed in a 21st century Bahamas.”

Mr Johnson said that after more than 18 years of agitating, successive governments have refused to make the industry independent, noting that there had been no developments since the government agreed in principal to a Heads of Agreement (HOA) with the taxi drivers last July.

“Many years ago our tourism industry was one which took place only three months out of the year. But, because of the service and the attention that we paid to them 50 years ago, we were able to lead the industry to where it became a year-round industry. What we at the PDSU have been saying is that we consider that as an investment, the investment that we made to help bring about the political change, we see that as a political investment and all we are saying to the government that we should be given a return on that by way of concessions,” said Mr Johnson.

Critical to the taxi drivers’ plans is the establishment of 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) according to Mr Johnson. With 2,500 taxi franchises in existence, Mr Johnson said that that a minimum $100,000 valuation per franchise could make the industry worth $250 million. “We have also said to the government that we have funding available to us once we can get the letter of comfort that we have been seeking. We are proposing a public private partnership with the government and in this way we can get back our independence and we don’t have to depend on the government and it will be good for tourism especially in light of what is taking place at Baha Mar.”