By YOURI KEMP

Tribune Business Reporter

ykemp@tribunemedia.net

The Bahamas Taxi Cab Union’s (BTCU) president says it is seeking a 25 percent fare hike to ease the burden of higher gas prices and soaring inflation.

Wesley Ferguson, its president, told Tribune Business that he informed Keith Bell, minister of labour and Immigration, that the union will formally request a fare rise this week. The notification was given when Mr Ferguson and other union leaders in the Bahamas National Alliance Trade Union Congress (BNATUC) met with the minister last week.

Mr Ferguson said: “We met with the labour minister and that was on the agenda, but that is not a labour matter. The BTCU negotiates directly with the minister for transport [Jobeth Coleby-Davis]; we don’t have industrial agreements. We don’t have contracts or anything like that. We just go into the minister and say what we want directly like that. We’re not under labour because we don’t represent labourers; we represent self-employed people.”

There is a “tentative” meeting scheduled for this Wednesday, Mr Ferguson confirmed, adding that a fare rise can no longer be delayed as gasoline topped $7 per gallon last week.

The BTCU previously held-off on a fare increase to see when gasoline prices would peak, but Mr Ferguson said he and his members cannot wait any longer and will seek relief from the Ministry of Transport now in the hope that there are no further surges in global oil prices.