By YOURI KEMP

Tribune Business Reporter

ykemp@tribunemedia.net

The Government’s decision to place new applications for taxi, livery and self-drive plates “on hold” was yesterday hailed by a union president for bringing order to a situation that was “never going to end”.

Wesley Ferguson, the Bahamas Taxicab Union’s (BTCU) president, backed the Road Traffic Department’s (RTD) move after it warned that franchise plates for New Providence are now “fully subscribed”. Explaining that the decision is partly to “avoid over-saturation” in the public transport sector, with too many drivers chasing too few customers, the Department added that the halt to new issuance will also enable it to assess existing plates.

This, it added, will enable it to identify dormant or inactive plates plus target “the unlawful and unfair practice of franchise leasing”. This involves franchise holders renting plates out to drivers, with the latter often paying a significant proportion of their earnings to the owners, thereby significantly reducing their take home pay.

Lanecia Darville, the Road Traffic Authority chair, wrote in a notice that a key element in efforts to modernise public transportation “is to create opportunities for small business ownership in the tourism and hospitality industry, the success of which is largely dependent on the discontinuation of the unlawful and unfair practice of franchise leasing”.

Noting that the Department has already begun to tackle this through issuing plates directly to drivers who “for decades operated under unlawful ‘lease arrangements’”, Ms Darville added: “The Road Traffic Department wishes to advise members of the public that the number of available franchises (taxi, livery, self-drive and other public service plates have been fully subscribed for New Providence.

“New franchises may be granted when plates are surrendered or franchises revoked. New applications will be placed on hold to enable the Road Traffic Department to complete an assessment of all franchise plates. As a part of this assessment, the Board reserves the right to require franchise holders to show cause why licence plates should not be surrendered to the Department of Road Traffic immediately.”

Calling for all inactive and dormant plates to be surrendered, in compliance with the Road Traffic Act, Ms Darville continued: “The decision to place new applications on hold is to allow for the full completion of the assessment process and to avoid over-saturation in the public transportation industry.”

New applications will only be processed as plates become available, and franchise holders will have 90 days to comply with these requirements or otherwise be forced to re-apply. Mr Ferguson, though, told Tribune Business that the taxi industry is already over-saturated and many drivers take home little to no money on consecutive days.

“Everybody who is out of the industry, and everybody who thinks they should get one, will be continuously agitating and continuously applying. That was never going to end. They should have put in a moratorium months ago,” Mr Ferguson argued.

“We were crying foul for a while now that there were too many taxi plates on the road. It is now September and taxi drivers are feeling the brunt of the saturation because sometimes there are no jobs. In previous times you could have gotten one or two jobs, but in most days some drivers are getting none.”

Mr Ferguson previously accused the Road Traffic Department of causing this problem by issuing more than 500 plates over the past two years, compared to the 200 requested by the union. “The chickens now have come home to roost,” he said.

“It’s too late to make a big deal about it because what is done is done, and we just have to now work around it and see how much tourists we can get in here so everyone can have something to take home until the season opens again. We just have to weather the storm until then.”

Mr Ferguson said drivers are waiting for their 10 percent fare increase to be formally introduced by the Ministry of Transport “within the next couple of weeks”. He added: “Right now we had our cake and now we have to set the plate down. The 10 percent is nothing much, but it is just to reinstate the respect for the BTCU because we felt that we were done an injustice with the saturation of the taxi plates.”