Taxi drivers warn: Fare hikes, protests if fuel subsidy removed

The TT Taxi Drivers Association is warning commuters of protests and a drastic increase in taxi fares if the fuel subsidy is removed.

Speaking at a Conversations with the Prime Minister on March 8, Dr Rowley said the population cannot be insulated from worldwide changes in the price of oil, and the cost of maintaining the fuel subsidy has become prohibitive.

During a press conference at the Macaulay Community Centre on Tuesday, the association’s president Adrian Acosta warned the PM that the suggestion “has brought a lot of anxiety to taxi drivers.”

Acosta said, “That move that the prime minister is going to make will be very detrimental to us and we want to say today that if that move is made, we as taxi drivers will have no choice but to do some adjustment to our fares. We will not – at no point in time – be taking that burden on our shoulders.

"Some of the calculations we have done is amazing (and) at the end of the day, it will be taking away a substantial amount of money from our pockets on a daily basis.”

Pointing out that taxi drivers have already suffered considerable losses since the start of the pandemic owing to successive restrictions on capacity limits, Acosta reiterated, “At no point in time taxi drivers will be carrying the burden of the fuel subsidy removal.

“We have done our part through this pandemic and we have lost a lot of money. We have now come out of that two-year drought and we are now looking to get back on our feet with the 100 per cent (passenger capacity).

“For the government to now come, at any point in time, and take away this fuel subsidy, it will have a very negative impact on us.”

Apart from an increase in fares, Acosta cautioned the PM to "think wisely "about the decision because the association will mobilise stakeholders to take a stand.

Because the decision will affect everyone, Acosta said the association will invite “the whole of TT” to take a stand.

“When that time comes, we’ll be calling on every citizen of this country to let the Government know that we are not in support of the removal of any fuel subsidy. We have taken four beatings already and the Minister of Finance came out and said there were no riots and he laughed.

"We will not be rioting, but we will be making a stand.”

While Acosta acknowledges the factors leading to a worldwide increase in oil prices, he called on the PM to find different ways to generate additional revenue for the country.

But Acosta said a rise in gas prices will just be one more burden for taxi drivers to carry as he pleaded with the PM to “assist us in the bad roads that we have.

“We have a pitch lake in this country (but) throughout the Caribbean – as I’ve heard – there are a lot of better roads. We have the resources in this country to have our roads in a better condition. Drivers throughout the country have been complaining about high maintenance costs when it comes to their vehicles.”

Given the Government collects a gas tax, Acosta suggested that money should be used to improve infrastructure such as roads and painting proper pavement markings at taxi stands.

Even though the PM said the country has been importing crude oil to refine it for export, the association’s assistant secretary David Mack asked for economists to revise the statement.

Mack said, “When the budget for 2021/2022 was read, the price of fuel was pegged – I can be wrong, as I said, I’m not an economist – between $70 and $75 a barrel, which afforded a deficit in the overall budget.

“In my limited knowledge of arithmetic, if you peg a budget at $70-75 for crude and within six months of doing that you have an increase of more than 30 per cent in the price, shouldn’t that reduce the deficit? Or eliminate it? Not create more problems.

“My commonsense arithmetic tells me that if I budget for $1 and I earn $5, what I was not able to afford with the hope of affording it, I can now afford/pay for it. even though I may not be able to afford additional.

“If the price of oil has gone up, shouldn’t we at the very least be able to pay our bills? Isn’t the fuel subsidy a recurrent expenditure in the budget? So if it could not be afforded at the budgeted price, shouldn’t we be more in a position to afford it with the increase in crude?"

Mack echoed Acosta’s call for the government to do its elected duties and find more ways to generate revenue rather than passing on the impending economic woes onto citizens.

With some taxi drivers even having their homes foreclosed over the past two years, Mack said the government must allow them a sigh of relief given their operating capacity was just increased to 100 per cent.

He lamented, “People are just exhaling for the first time, and that is not when you kick a man. You don’t kick a man when he is down, that is when you do the best to mitigate the circumstances, to at least allow us to breathe.

“I would believe that that is how a caring government, who has the outlook of the people at heart, would approach it.”