SHAL­IZA HAS­SANALI

Head of the Route Two Maxi Taxi As­so­ci­a­tion Li­nus Phillip has promised to make a de­fin­i­tive state­ment by mid-week on whether red band maxi taxi dri­vers will in­crease their fares or not, fol­low­ing Gov­ern­ment’s move to in­crease fu­el prices on April 19.

The an­nounce­ment by Fi­nance Min­is­ter Colm Im­bert on Fri­day to raise the cost of pre­mi­um, su­per and diesel prices at the pumps, Phillip said, has been en­gag­ing the at­ten­tion of its 2,000 plus dri­vers on the as­so­ci­a­tion’s What­sApp chat.

“There have been mixed views on the price hike. Every­one would not agree on the same thing. Peo­ple some­times tend to make de­ci­sions based on their per­son­al po­si­tion,” Phillip said.

He said the as­so­ci­a­tion can­not af­ford to do that.

To­day, Phillip said he will meet with his ex­ec­u­tive to dis­cuss the new fu­el cost.

“We still have to lis­ten to what peo­ple have to say be­fore we make a fi­nal de­ci­sion. We will give a fi­nal state­ment on what we all agree on. That will be ear­ly mid week. Some peo­ple un­der­stand the cur­rent sit­u­a­tion with the ris­ing cost of liv­ing...oth­ers do not.”

But the as­so­ci­a­tion, he said, will de­cide on what is best for the in­dus­try.

“Some peo­ple were ex­pect­ing the prices to be high­er based on what we were hear­ing in the pub­lic do­main. Some peo­ple thought the 50 cent in­crease in diesel was very mod­er­ate.”

He said a dri­ver of a 25 seater maxi taxi would have to fork out be­tween $30 to $35 more in fu­el dai­ly.

A 12-seater dri­ver would spend an ad­di­tion­al $20.

Last No­vem­ber, the as­so­ci­a­tion in­creased its fares from Port-of-Spain to Ari­ma and vice ver­sa from $8 to $10.

All short drops re­mained at $5 while the fares along the route in­creased by $1.

“See­ing that we just had a fare in­crease, maybe we could ab­sorb it.”

Phillip said the ex­ec­u­tive would have to take in­to con­sid­er­a­tion the ris­ing costs of liv­ing and soar­ing food prices.

“These are the things we have been look­ing at. Re­mem­ber our costs are al­so go­ing up...costs on parts and oil...all these things go­ing up too on us.”

Phillip said the dri­vers can­not op­er­ate at a loss or find them­selves in a sit­u­a­tion where they can­not pay their in­sur­ance pre­mi­ums or main­tain their bus­es.

“We re­al­ly have to do a bal­anc­ing act be­tween what is re­al­ly go­ing on...our ex­pen­di­ture and in­come. We have to look at who trav­els with us. It is not rich peo­ple we does trans­port. We trans­port the low­er and mid­dle-class peo­ple.”

He said the as­so­ci­a­tion has to make the fares af­ford­able for the small man.

“But at the same time we can­not run our busi­ness in­to a buss. We have to look at what would keep the in­dus­try func­tion­ing on a whole.”

Con­tact­ed yes­ter­day, pres­i­dent of Route One Maxi Taxi As­so­ci­a­tion Ian He­witt said he too plans to meet with mem­bers of the as­so­ci­a­tion to­day be­fore mak­ing a pro­nounce­ment.

He­witt rep­re­sents the yel­low band maxi taxi dri­vers.

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