Mayor Darrell Bradley on Moratorium on Taxi License Plates

Darrell Bradley

On Monday evening, dozens of taxi operators representing various unions and associations across Belize City participated in a public consultation where they shared opinions on an existing moratorium on the issuance of taxi license plates.  The overall response was a mixed bag as there were some who supported the move to keep the suspension in place, while others were adamant that the ban should be lifted.  According to Mayor Darrell Bradley, the council is taking into careful consideration all concerns raised by cab drivers during the recent exercise.

Darrell Bradley, Belize City Mayor

“Belize City simply has too many taxis and the difficulty there is that it’s hard for a taxi driver to make a living because there is so much competition; there is so much readiness and then this is buttress by the increase in buses now and the dollar vans so that the taxi men are under assault. So that a lot of them also want the moratorium to be kept in place so that there is still viability to the profession of being a taxi man and delivering quality service at a reasonable price to customers within Belize City. So we had the moratorium, our traffic manager, Kevaughan Jenkins, was out of the country for some time…that’s why it was a little delayed. But yesterday was very good. The reports that I got was that there was significant feedback from the members of the public. We invited members from the Department of Transport, Mister Jeffries had come. We had invited the presidents of all the taxi associations, we had written to persons who were aggrieved by the moratorium to say some to this meeting and voice your concerns. We documented everything, it was recorded so that we know one of the major concerns of the residents. And by and large, the major thing that came out of that was that people are happy and when I say this, I speak very cautiously and carefully. But the sense that we have been getting and that was confirmed at the public consultation was that we, residents including members of the taxi associations, are happy with the moratorium being in place, but they are concerned about it affecting people unfairly. And we have looked at those things in the past and we are prepared to look at them in the future.”

The moratorium, according to Mayor Bradley, is something that has been implemented across the country, an indefinite freeze which he met when he took office in 2012.