The Tribune

By YOURI KEMP

Tribune Business Reporter

ykemp@tribunemedia.net

The Bahamas Taxi Cab Union's president yesterday contradicted assertions by a Cabinet minister that their complaints have already been addressed ahead of today's planned protest outside Parliament.

Wesley Ferguson told Tribune Business “nothing has been finalised” over their grievances with the Road Traffic Department (RTD) on the renewal and management of taxi plates despite the minister for transport suggesting the dispute had been resolved.

Dion Foulkes, minister for labour, transport and local government, said he had a “very productive talk” with Mr Ferguson on Monday. "There were some issues with the renewal of those plates. I have since had a discussion with the comptroller, Mr Bradley Sands, and that issue has been resolved.

“I spoke to the president, and he is invited to go down to the Road Traffic Department to see Mr Sands, and that matter will be settled with respect to the colour of the plates.”

Mr Ferguson, while confirming that he did speak with Mr Foulkes on Monday, replied: "Nothing has been finalised. We have worked out no issues with Mr Sands. Mr Foulkes tried to get me to go down to the RTD to talk to Mr Sands, but I told him I was not going.

"What Mr Foulkes doesn’t understand is that these issues stem back from over a period of time. This is not just one issue; there are many issues where I had to report Mr Sands to the permanent secretary and told them that I don’t like the way Mr Sands is dealing with the union.

"One phone call is not going to do it. We need to actually sit down with the Prime Minister and let the Prime Minister tell us when we are going to get these new plates. It has to be before this year’s May licensing period for taxi plate owners. As you know, the self-drive (SD) cars and the taxi cabs have the same colour,"

Mr Foulkes, meanwhile, said: "We have been reviewing it, and my predecessors, Mr (Renward) Wells and (Frankie) Campbell, they have both been looking at this issue since the last election. The question is: Do we change the colour of the taxi cabs to another colour, or do we change the colour of the self-drive plates?

“I think the consensus is that we take the SD plates to a white colour so that it would be a clear difference between the taxi cab plates and the self-drive plates. I've asked the controller to give me an estimate on the costing of how much that transfer would take in terms of the cost. So we are doing an active review on that. As soon as that comes back, I would seek Cabinet approval to change the colour.”

Mr Ferguson responded: “They also told us about the colour change to the plates, but nothing was resolved. This is the same conversation we keep rehashing. This is a conversation we had four years ago with Renward Wells. This is the same conversation.

“I told minister Foulkes yesterday that if the plates are pink, we will accept it. We couldn't care less what colour the plates are, we just need an identifying taxi plate number to identify the taxi as opposed to an SD.”

Mr Foulkes also warned taxi drivers against leasing their plates to other drivers, adding: “One of the biggest vexing issues that has existed for many years, for many, many terms and for many governments, has been this question of the leasing of plates by taxi drivers.

"We have had many taxi drivers who've been paying weekly rents and monthly rents to lease plates for years and, in some cases, decades and they were unable to get their own plate. We have applications and letters and petitions, and the union has also given us a list of who those taxi cab drivers are.

"Minister Wells did a lot of work and a lot of consultation on this issue, and Cabinet gave consideration to it. Unfortunately, the pandemic interfered with that process. There was one point where all the taxi cabs were parked, and all of the jitneys were parked, and there just wasn't any business out there," Mr Foulkes added.

“So I made an undertaking to the president of the union that we will begin that review again, and that consultation again, so that we could finally bring an end to this unfair practice of having these taxi cab drivers lease plates for their livelihood.”