Sunday,May 22nd, 2011
Page 7
Taxing the taxis - an irony of ironies Partisan politics is an immoral business
It’s perhaps the biggest irony of all ironies - I simple cannot understand what is going through the minds of the Mayor, her Deputy Mayor and the Belize City Council. Over the past few weeks the City Council has been in the news because they propose to charge the taxi operators in Belize City a trade license. This obviously is a case of trying to tax the Belizean taxi operators and by extension create greater inflation for the families of these hard working Belizeans. Would you ever have imagined that this comes at a time when the cost of fuel is at all time high? The Deputy Mayor, under whose portfolio the responsibility for the City traffic department falls, seems adamant that this new tax will be implemented on January first. Now let just examine what these taxi operators have to contend with, especially in light of the circumstances that the Belize City Council is not in support of an increase in taxi fare. It cost taxi operators more than private motor vehicles for insurance as well as for the registration and the licensing of their vehicles. In addition to that, the operators must get a special driving permit to operate these taxis. But unlike private motor vehicles’ which are obligated to go from point a to point b and then park, taxis the most part are constantly moving. This means that the consumption of fuel by taxis is far, far greater than that of private motor vehicles. So, for argument sake, let’s say a taxi operates on (8) eight to (10) ten gallon of fuel per day for the (8) eight to (10) ten hours that they operate - that is more than $120.00 per day in fuel alone. If they work 6 days per week, and in most cases taxis work (7 ) seven days, that is over ($840.00) eight hundred forty dollars per week. Now since this is their sole source of survival it is mandatory that they work fifty two weeks for the year. $840.00 per week times (52) fifty two weeks is ($47,000.00) forty seven thousand dollars for the year in just fuel alone, not to mention servicing, oil changes, parts and tire replacement for these vehicle. And when we factor in the condition of the city streets and you add that to the wear and tear of the vehicles, it does this seems as if the Council is trying to eliminate an en-
tire industry that is owned and operated by small business men. And to add to all that, all of this is taking place during the dry season imagine what will happen to these taxi operators when the rain start in a couple of weeks and the city becomes flooded. And the flood is going to be caused by the Council’s incompetent and their neglecting of the City’s infrastructure, especially the drains that are in terrible state. The earthen drains are not being maintained and are totally overgrown with grass while the covered concrete drains are silted up, full of debris and have not been properly maintained for a very long time. Naturally the UDP City Council does not realize that these taxi men are some of the best campaigners that you would ever find. They move thousands of voters across the City and in some cases across the country on a daily basis. They have tremendous influence and they can definitely sway votes. Maybe the City Council is more concerned about generating revenue than they are about providing good and services to the City. Perhaps it is that they are even less concerned about an industry that is self sufficient, entrepreneurial and does not rely on neither the local nor the national government to provide them with jobs. I hold heartedly express my solidarity with the taxi operators and will be more than happy to support whatever action they intend to take to insure that this tax-sucking City Council does not take advantage of them. If these taxi operators are forced to subsidize the lavish life style of the city councilors (“although incompetent”) then it’s only a matter of time before that rise in taxation will be passed on to the general public.
This UDP city council is suggesting that the previous PUP city council was trying to implement this tax on the taxi operators. This is “NOT SO”! The PUP city council had recommended to the taxi operators that they form themselves into unions or cooperatives and establish an umbrella organization which would have been the Belize City association of the taxi unions or taxi cooperatives. This organization would have then entered into an agreement with the Council to lease the properties where the taxi unions or cooperative are located for the exclusive use of taxi operations. Since the council has the responsibility for the management and enforcement of traffic regulations in Belize City that authority would have been used to protect the operations of the taxi unions or co-
“First time is happenstance; second time is coincidence, third time is enemy action.” – Kriol proverb The most insidious aspect of partisan politics is the internecine warfare among competitors for positions of influence within the party itself. Nominal supporters like me who try to stay beyond the fray and who, as a matter of principle, do not swear allegiance to any faction, are especially vulnerable when the infighting is at its highest pitch. And no time is the competition for positions of influence more intense than during the convention season. A call this Thursday to the WAVE Morning Show brought this starkly home to me this week. It is one of a series of events that have been reverberating through the PUP as a consequence of the on-going convention season, and the shifts in power and influence. I don’t monitor the WAVE Morning Show because it is usually too partisan for me, and that frustrates me, and I used to be too busy hosting a show at that time. I have been removed from the morning show, a consequence I believe of a power grab, and just between me and you, I am grateful because I know now somebody did me a favor. But I digress. Others who listen in have informed me that this week for the third time in the past two months or so, someone, presumably a man, called Joe Bradley to say that he had heard me threatening to punch him in the face. Like most people I assumed at first that it was the UDP partisans being provocative since there is simply no truth to the allegation and I could not, at that time, think of anyone else having the motive to lie so baldly. I dismissed the matter, preoccupied at the time with other matters. The second time I had to pause and ponder because someone near to me had gotten into an altercation with one of the WAVE Morning Show hosts, and I had to, as a matter of principle, make it clear that I understood what she was going through and supported the expression of her sheer frustration. I had been pilloried, ridiculed and operatives. This umbrella association would have had the power to recommend the future of taxi operations in Belize City including number of licenses issued and the criteria for the issuing of taxi operating licenses. With the large number of operating taxis in the city they would have had the strength in numbers to negotiate with the auto parts stores when it comes to the cost of parts for their vehicle. Ultimately they would have been a greater level of authority to the people who have invested in this industry and have built it from scratch. Despite that entire framework and
lied about for years by the WAVE Morning Show hosts, and after my initial anger and frustration I had learned to take it in stride. I want to believe I have risen above all that, and except for my mother’s anguish at their malice and vindictiveness, I am hardly bothered. But the attacks on me both on WAVE, as far as I have been told, and in the Guardian have ceased the past several weeks. It is clear that as a matter of policy the show is kinder and gentler, if that is possible within the political prism, while ironically, the PUP has made my former morning show more “WAVE-like”. So who is it that wants to stir up the WAVE talk show hosts to continue/resume disparaging me? Who, I wonder, is this agent provocateur? Sometime ago I was told by a PUP “strategist” that back in the run up to the 2008 General Elections campaign “they” had discussed having me kidnapped, ala Derek Aikman, to try and garner sympathy for the party. I was appalled that anyone would even consider, much less discuss, and then actually tell me, about such a “tactic”. But then again, I too often “forget” that I am doomed to deal with persons within the partisan political system for whom political expediency is far more important than principle. I will therefore assume that the calls to the WAVE morning show are being caused, as the lawyers would say, by the PUP political strategist. At this point I assume his motive is to continue to destabilize me within the party. I despise these people. My former friend and mentor Evan X Hyde, who is a grandmaster at conspiracy theorizing, often used to advise me that politics is an amoral business. It is not that I don’t heed his admonition, but I continue to find the precept appalling both in the abstract as well as in the real. However I have to add a qualification – the practice of that type of politics is an amoral business only in the abstract, in the really real, it is also immoral. the proposal from the past PUP city council the taxi operators was perhaps the greatest force campaigning for the UDP. This is a clear case of “AFTER SERVICE, KISS ME ASS”. Remember how many of these taxi operators had the “LIFE HAAD OUT YAH” bumper stickers on their cars prior to the elections? I believe they contributed largely to the UDP victory. These hard working Belizeans didn’t expect that the possibilities that you were asking them to imagine would have been tax them to death, while refusing to support an increase in their fares. “FIRE PAH UNU”. Just my Impartial View.