The Tribune

By LYNAIRE MUNNINGS

lmunnings@tribunemedia.net

TAXI drivers want a 30 percent increase across the board to offset the rising cost of fuel.

Wesley Ferguson, Bahamas Taxi Cab Union president, told reporters yesterday the minister was receptive to their proposal to increase fares.

He said, however, officials were still mulling over the proposal.

The union initially proposed a 25 percent hike.

“The minister was very receptive to our proposal,” Mr Ferguson said.

“We proposed to her to give us a 30 percent rise across the board to deflate the cost of rising fuel prices. We threw some numbers around and it’s now in the process of being analyzed by the minister and those in the financial sector.”

In response, Transport and Housing Minister Jobeth Coleby Davis said yesterday: “Nothing has been done further on the request, we have to continue to speak to Cabinet on some of the requests that came in and they will direct me how best we can respond to the request.”

 The comments came as The Ministry of Transport and Housing held a licensing opportunity yesterday at Loyola Hall, Gladstone Road, for taxi and livery drivers who have been working 15 years to 20 years with a leased license.

 Mrs Coleby-Davis said “the process is an open and transparent one to illuminate and eradicate the under-the-table foolishness.”

 Minister Coleby-Davis said after numerous meetings with both the Taxi Union president and Livery Drivers Union president, it was decided that in order to clarify union members as entrepreneurs, this process had to take place.

 Yesterday the ministry empowered scores of taxi drivers by issuing them taxi plates and sorting out an issue that has enslaved taxi drivers for decades.

“We specifically really looking for persons who have been in the industry for 10, 15, 20 years and have been leasing. We want to give them their freedom today and give a little bit more empowerment to them,” the minister said.

“It’s not to take the plates away from who actually has them now and issue them to the persons that’s driving. It’s just to give that driver their own plate,” she added.

 The minister said a similar process has been launched on the Family Islands, such as Grand Bahama, Abaco, Eleuthera, and Exuma.

 “It was a smaller process - so it didn’t have to be as big as this because a lot of them already had their applications in so they had a list sitting and waiting for that day to come. I think we have captured a bulk of them, and if not we will continue to assist where we can.”

 Before this event, the minister of transport and housing said 180 plates were distributed.

 David Curry, a taxi driver of 23 years said this initiative is a great moment in Bahamian history.

 “It’s a great moment in the history of The Bahamas actually, that we could now come from just being workers and drivers to actually being owners and business owners of the industry we’re in,” he said.

 Phillip Poitier, taxi driver of six months, shared similar views as he described the process as “a new day”.

 Mr Poitier said: “All I could say is it’s a new day as I am very excited.”