An­na-Lisa Paul

It will be a per­son­al choice for the own­ers/op­er­a­tors of small and large maxi-taxis if they want to con­tin­ue pro­vid­ing ser­vices to the pub­lic af­ter Sun­day.

This was the ad­vice by Red Band Maxi-Taxi As­so­ci­a­tion Pres­i­dent, Li­nus Phillip yes­ter­day, fol­low­ing an an­nounce­ment that dri­vers will now be forced to op­er­ate at 50 per cent ca­pac­i­ty on­ly.

Dur­ing a news con­fer­ence at the Min­istry of Health, Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Stu­art Young said the trans­porta­tion sec­tor had been deemed an es­sen­tial ser­vice at this time.

How­ev­er, he said maxi-taxis, minibus­es and pri­vate hire taxis would not be al­lowed to op­er­ate at max­i­mum ca­pac­i­ty.

This is in keep­ing with the need to main­tain so­cial dis­tanc­ing pro­to­cols as one of the mea­sures to stem the spread of the COVID-19 virus.

The new di­rec­tive means that a large maxi reg­is­tered to trans­port 25 pas­sen­gers, would not be able to trans­port more than 12 pas­sen­gers at any giv­en time.

Mean­while, a small maxi reg­is­tered to trans­port 14 pas­sen­gers will now be forced to cut that num­ber by half.

Phillip said while dis­cus­sions had been held with the min­is­ter pri­or to yes­ter­day’s an­nounce­ment, no fi­nal de­ci­sion had been tak­en.

He said the an­nounce­ment had come as a shock, and would have been a sur­prise to many of their mem­bers.

Phillip told Guardian Me­dia, “My first con­cern is how fea­si­ble it is for dri­vers to op­er­ate be­cause some of them are al­ready say­ing it is not work­ing out for them.”

He went on to ex­plain that if a dri­ver was to pick up a max­i­mum load of 12 pas­sen­gers at $8 per per­son, that would amount to $96 per trip.

“Right now, some of us are on­ly mak­ing two trips per day and come next week, that will be worse be­cause there will be less peo­ple on the road,” Phillip said.

He ques­tioned, “Is it fea­si­ble to come out and make about $300 if a dri­ver makes about three trips, where the diesel bill re­mains the same per trip be­cause that is not de­creas­ing? And we still have wear and tear to con­sid­er, and tyres to re­place ei­ther way?”

Phillip said when all these op­er­at­ing costs are con­sid­ered, the ex­pens­es for the own­ers/op­er­a­tors re­mained the same.

Phillip said, “The peo­ple we are be­ing asked to car­ry to work will re­ceive their full salary at the end of the month but we are asked to make a 100 per cent sac­ri­fice, and so we have to con­sid­er if we will con­tin­ue work­ing and how it will be done.”

Phillip said they are open to dis­cus­sions with the Gov­ern­ment on this mat­ter.

He con­clud­ed, “Just as how the Gov­ern­ment sent home all the oth­ers who they had to and pro­vid­ed food cards for them…the air­lines that were closed and mon­ey was pro­vid­ed to com­pen­sate for shut­ting them down…we haven’t even got a tank of fu­el.”

“They haven’t even of­fered us a free full-up every day so at least we won’t have to buy fu­el…noth­ing.”