Ot­to Car­ring­ton

Se­nior Re­porter

ot­to.car­ring­ton@guardian.co.tt

Pres­i­dent of the Route 2 Maxi Taxi As­so­ci­a­tion, Bren­ton Knights, has ac­cused the Of­fice of the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al of fail­ing to com­ply with the le­gal time­lines un­der the Free­dom of In­for­ma­tion Act (FOIA) af­ter sub­mit­ting re­quests for in­for­ma­tion re­lat­ed to mat­ters af­fect­ing the maxi taxi sec­tor.

Knights said the as­so­ci­a­tion sub­mit­ted sev­er­al re­quests un­der the Act to the Of­fice of the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al and the for­mer Min­istry of Works and Trans­port, now split in­to the Min­istry of Works and In­fra­struc­ture and the Min­istry of Trans­port and Civ­il Avi­a­tion, but has yet to re­ceive for­mal re­spons­es de­spite the statu­to­ry dead­line hav­ing passed.

Ac­cord­ing to Knights, the law pro­vides a 30-day win­dow for pub­lic au­thor­i­ties to re­spond to FOIA re­quests by ei­ther pro­vid­ing the in­for­ma­tion, deny­ing the re­quest un­der spe­cif­ic ex­emp­tions or re­quest­ing an ex­ten­sion from the ap­pli­cant.

“It seems to me the sys­tem is sup­press­ing the in­for­ma­tion,” Knights said, adding that while he did not want to de­scribe the sit­u­a­tion as op­pres­sive, the con­tin­ued de­lays raise con­cerns about trans­paren­cy and com­pli­ance with the law.

He ex­plained that if a pub­lic au­thor­i­ty can­not ful­fil a re­quest with­in the ini­tial 30 days, it must seek an ex­ten­sion from the ap­pli­cant, who then has the op­tion to grant or refuse the ad­di­tion­al time.

Knights said his as­so­ci­a­tion grant­ed sev­er­al ex­ten­sions in good faith af­ter re­peat­ed re­quests from the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al’s of­fice.

He said the last ex­ten­sion re­quest was made in Jan­u­ary, but since that pe­ri­od ex­pired, the as­so­ci­a­tion has re­ceived no fur­ther cor­re­spon­dence.

Knights said the as­so­ci­a­tion sub­mit­ted about four FOIA re­quests to the rel­e­vant min­istries and the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al’s of­fice seek­ing in­for­ma­tion tied to a se­ri­ous court mat­ter in­volv­ing mem­bers of the maxi taxi fra­ter­ni­ty, as well as pol­i­cy de­ci­sions af­fect­ing the sec­tor.

He added that the re­quests were al­so aimed at ob­tain­ing clar­i­ty on de­ci­sions and poli­cies af­fect­ing the maxi taxi in­dus­try, which, he said, are not al­ways made pub­lic or com­mu­ni­cat­ed to stake­hold­ers.

Knights said the as­so­ci­a­tion is al­so seek­ing progress on a long-await­ed pol­i­cy frame­work for the maxi taxi sec­tor, in­clud­ing re­forms that would mod­ernise the sys­tem.

The as­so­ci­a­tion pres­i­dent said they are still wait­ing on the min­istry re­gard­ing their pro­pos­als for the Pri­or­i­ty Bus Route.

Among the pro­pos­als is a shift away from the cur­rent per­mit sys­tem to a li­cens­ing mod­el, which he be­lieves would bet­ter re­flect the in­dus­try’s long-term role in the coun­try’s trans­porta­tion net­work.

“We have made rec­om­men­da­tions even to mod­ernise the sys­tem to move away from a per­mit to a li­cence so every­thing can be dig­i­talised and more ef­fi­cient,” he said.

Knights said the min­is­ter had pre­vi­ous­ly in­di­cat­ed that a pol­i­cy up­date could have been de­liv­ered by the end of Jan­u­ary, but the as­so­ci­a­tion has yet to re­ceive an up­date.

He al­so stressed that maxi taxi op­er­a­tors should be recog­nised as le­git­i­mate busi­ness­es with­in the na­tion­al trans­porta­tion frame­work.

Knights al­so is­sued a di­rect ap­peal to the coun­try’s top le­gal of­fi­cials to en­sure com­pli­ance with the leg­is­la­tion gov­ern­ing ac­cess to in­for­ma­tion.

Guardian Me­dia at­tempt­ed to con­tact At­tor­ney Gen­er­al John Je­re­mie, but calls to his phone went unan­swered.