Akash Sama­roo

Lead Ed­i­tor-Pol­i­tics

akash.sama­roo@cnc3.co.tt

Maxi taxi as­so­ci­a­tions are in­sist­ing they nev­er for­mal­ly an­nounced any in­crease in fares and are ques­tion­ing why they have come un­der sharp crit­i­cism from the Prime Min­is­ter.

The op­er­a­tors were re­cent­ly re­buked by PM Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar, who said the re­cent in­crease in the Pri­or­i­ty Bus Route (PBR) fee was neg­li­gi­ble and should not be passed on to com­muters.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar was re­spond­ing at the time to me­dia ques­tions over claims that maxi taxi op­er­a­tors had sig­nalled the move could re­sult in high­er fares.

How­ev­er, Guardian Me­dia was told by the Route 2 Maxi Taxi As­so­ci­a­tion that no de­ci­sion has been tak­en to raise fares.

Pres­i­dent of the as­so­ci­a­tion Bren­ton Knights stressed that their po­si­tion has noth­ing to do with the Prime Min­is­ter’s re­cent com­ments.

“This is not in re­sponse to any idle threat from the Prime Min­is­ter. That was said be­fore and is not in re­sponse to any ir­ra­tional threat from the Prime Min­is­ter,” Knights said.

The “threat” he ref­er­enced was the Prime Min­is­ter’s sug­ges­tion of a broad­er pol­i­cy shift re­gard­ing ac­cess to the Pri­or­i­ty Bus Route.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar had said, “Maybe it’s time to open the bus route to every­one, and that way the maxi taxis can op­er­ate with­out any fee. I would al­so be will­ing to take this mea­sure if they want.”

Mean­while, As­so­ci­a­tion of Maxi Taxis pres­i­dent Eon He­witt re­ferred Guardian Me­dia to a bul­letin is­sued by the Route 2 group on De­cem­ber 29, which al­so con­firmed that no de­ci­sion has been made on fare in­creas­es.

The bul­letin states that “no op­er­a­tional, reg­u­la­to­ry, or fee-re­lat­ed changes have been ap­proved or im­ple­ment­ed with­out due process, in­clud­ing for­mal re­view and di­rect com­mu­ni­ca­tion with all rel­e­vant stake­hold­ers.”

It fur­ther urged the pub­lic and op­er­a­tors to dis­re­gard any claims not is­sued through the as­so­ci­a­tion’s of­fi­cial chan­nels, not­ing that all ap­proved changes are com­mu­ni­cat­ed ex­clu­sive­ly on of­fi­cial Route 2 Maxi Taxi As­so­ci­a­tion let­ter­head and sub­ject to ex­ec­u­tive au­tho­ri­sa­tion.

He­witt said he will re­spond ful­ly to the Prime Min­is­ter’s com­ments af­ter meet­ing with his mem­bers.

For now, he said, “The Prime Min­is­ter is the Prime Min­is­ter of Trinidad and To­ba­go. We hear her. We don’t un­der­stand her, but we hear her.”

He added that any re­ports of fare in­creas­es may have orig­i­nat­ed from in­di­vid­ual dri­vers and not from any as­so­ci­a­tion-lev­el de­ci­sion.

Guardian Me­dia was al­so re­li­ably in­formed that sev­er­al maxi taxi op­er­a­tors had al­ready paid their PBR fees in full for 2026, pri­or to the an­nounce­ment of the in­crease, mean­ing the ad­di­tion­al cost would not af­fect their op­er­a­tional ex­pens­es next year.

The quar­ter­ly PBR fee has dou­bled from $300 to $600.

On Mon­day, the Prime Min­is­ter de­scribed the in­crease as min­i­mal, equat­ing it to the cost of a soft drink per day.

“The new in­creased fee amounts to three dol­lars more per day. They’ve been pay­ing three dol­lars per day for 37 years. Maxi taxi dri­vers will now pay six dol­lars per day to use the bus route; that’s the price of a small Co­ca-Co­la,” she said.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar added that the Pri­or­i­ty Bus Route is heav­i­ly sub­sidised by tax­pay­ers and ar­gued that fare in­creas­es would be un­fair to com­muters.

“I can’t see why they would want to raise prices when it costs tens of mil­lions to main­tain and op­er­ate the bus route, which is sub­sidised by tax­pay­ers’ mon­ey,” the Prime Min­is­ter said.

De­tail­ing that sub­sidy, she added that tax­pay­ers cur­rent­ly cov­er the cost of road mark­ings, traf­fic lights, drainage, street light­ing, se­cu­ri­ty, and the PBR unit, and sug­gest­ed she may even be will­ing to give the as­so­ci­a­tion full con­trol of the bus route, pro­vid­ed they are pre­pared to as­sume all as­so­ci­at­ed costs.

Op­po­si­tion Leader calls out PM for ‘ir­re­spon­si­ble at­tack’

Op­po­si­tion Leader Pen­ne­lope Beck­les is call­ing out the Prime Min­is­ter for what she de­scribed as an ir­re­spon­si­ble at­tack on maxi taxi dri­vers.

Beck­les is urg­ing Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar to ap­proach the mat­ter with, “care, com­pas­sion and a clear un­der­stand­ing of the re­al­i­ties fac­ing work­ing peo­ple.”

The Op­po­si­tion Leader took note that the Route 2 Maxi Taxi As­so­ci­a­tion has called for con­sul­ta­tion on the re­cent­ly an­nounced in­crease in fees to use the Pri­or­i­ty Bus Route (PBR).

“This is not a triv­ial sum. Every cit­i­zen un­der­stands that ad­di­tion­al fixed costs, im­posed with­out con­sul­ta­tion, di­rect­ly erode house­hold in­come and low­er stan­dards of liv­ing,” Beck­les said.

She sought to re­mind the Prime Min­is­ter that on May 1, dur­ing her in­au­gu­ra­tion she promised to be open and com­mu­ni­cate with the peo­ple.

Beck­les be­lieves the maxi taxi dri­vers de­serve that much.

“The re­al­i­ty is that the 2026 Bud­get in­tro­duced spe­cif­ic mea­sures such as a land­lord tax, a com­mer­cial elec­tric­i­ty sur­charge, in­creased NIB rates, and high­er fees and fines that will in­evitably lead to price in­creas­es across the coun­try, with con­sumers feel­ing the pinch. Add to this the dou­bling of fines for traf­fic of­fences, and it be­comes clear that the cost of do­ing busi­ness for Maxi Taxi op­er­a­tors has risen sig­nif­i­cant­ly.”

She added, “It is pre­cise­ly for this rea­son that I share the pub­lic’s con­cern about any in­crease in Maxi Taxi fares for the trav­el­ling pub­lic. How­ev­er, that same log­ic must ap­ply to the re­lent­less in­crease in costs be­ing forced up­on Maxi Taxi op­er­a­tors.”