RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

More than 60 per cent of taxi dri­vers across T&T have in­creased their fares since the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic hit and now, three more as­so­ci­a­tions - the San Fer­nan­do to Macaulay, Cou­va to San Fer­nan­do and the Ch­agua­nas to San Fer­nan­do Taxi Dri­vers As­so­ci­a­tions, have an­nounced they will be in­creas­ing their fares by $3, $1 and $4 re­spec­tive­ly start­ing next week.

Speak­ing at a me­dia con­fer­ence in San Fer­nan­do yes­ter­day, pres­i­dent of the T&T Taxi Dri­vers’ Net­work, Adri­an Acos­ta, said fares across the coun­try have risen from $1 to as much as $5 since March last year.

He said from May 31, the taxi fee to trav­el from San Fer­nan­do to Ch­agua­nas will be in­creas­ing from $14 to $18.

He said al­though the move will put a strain on pas­sen­gers, it had to be done be­cause of re­duced in­come caused by the 50 per cent ca­pac­i­ty lim­it.

Acos­ta said le­git­i­mate taxi dri­vers were fac­ing stiff fines for en­ter­ing cer­tain streets in Port-of-Spain, while PH dri­vers were al­lowed to ply for hire with­out any penal­ties.

“We feel we are be­ing pe­nalised for do­ing the right thing,” Acos­ta said.

De­spite ris­ing COVID-19 in­fec­tions, Acos­ta called on the Gov­ern­ment to in­crease the ca­pac­i­ty from 50 per cent to 75 per cent.

He said taxi dri­vers have not con­tributed to the COVID-19 spike, yet were be­ing told they must op­er­ate at 50 per cent ca­pac­i­ty.

“It is ridicu­lous. We are los­ing mon­ey and right now every­thing we work for goes back to­wards pur­chas­ing gas,” he added.

He called on Gov­ern­ment to pro­vide sta­tis­tics and proof that com­mut­ing was caus­ing COVID-19 spread.

“As taxi dri­vers, we were try­ing our best to keep the fare the same but now we have to read­just our taxi fares. This is very bur­den­some to us and it is a bur­den we can no longer car­ry on our shoul­ders,” Acos­ta said.

He said he knew of on­ly one taxi dri­ver in Ari­ma who con­tract­ed COVID. Acos­ta al­so said PH dri­vers were bul­ly­ing le­git­i­mate taxi dri­vers at the na­tion’s taxi stands and the po­lice had failed to crack down on this.

“We have a lot of in­di­vid­u­als who are bul­lies and who are threat­en­ing oth­er taxi dri­vers. Some of them have weapons on their ve­hi­cles and we are telling the po­lice don’t wait un­til some­one dies to help us bet­ter gov­ern our taxi stands,” Acos­ta said.

San Fer­nan­do to Macaulay Taxi Dri­vers’ As­so­ci­a­tion pres­i­dent Hem­raj Nar­ine al­so said fares were set to in­crease from Mon­day by $3.

He said the fee is usu­al­ly $9 but from Mon­day it will jump to $12.

“From Mara­bel­la to Macaulay, it will be $11 and from the main road to St Mar­garet’s will be a fur­ther $2.

He al­so said the Cou­va Taxi Dri­vers’ As­so­ci­a­tion have al­so raised their fares by $1.

Both Acos­ta and Nar­ine promised that if the Prime Min­is­ter al­lows the ca­pac­i­ty to in­crease to 75 per cent, they will re­duce their fees.