Business leaders brace for impact of maxi taxi strike

AN­GE­LO JE­DIDI­AH

Re­porter

an­ge­lo.je­didi­[email protected]

With the start of to­day’s planned strike by maxi taxi op­er­a­tors across the coun­try, mem­bers of the busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty fear it could bring wide­spread dis­rup­tion to busi­ness­es and es­sen­tial ser­vices across Trinidad and To­ba­go.

This comes as the As­so­ci­a­tion of Maxi Taxi Trinidad and To­ba­go con­firmed that more than 5,000 op­er­a­tors are plan­ning a three-day shut­down to protest what they de­scribe as years of ne­glect and un­re­solved griev­ances.

Greater San Fer­nan­do Cham­ber of Com­merce pres­i­dent Ki­ran Singh said the shut­down could have far-reach­ing con­se­quences across mul­ti­ple in­dus­tries.

“This has the po­ten­tial to be wide­ly dis­rup­tive na­tion­wide,” Singh told Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day.

“If it goes ahead as planned, busi­ness­es may see some chal­lenge to re­main open if work­ers are chal­lenged in terms of get­ting trans­port to get to work. The maxi taxis, as we know, they are a vi­tal cog­ni­tive wheel of trans­port na­tion­wide. The PTSC is not ad­e­quate to take the ca­pac­i­ty of pas­sen­gers on a dai­ly ba­sis to their des­ti­na­tions.”

Singh not­ed that the busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty and the wider pub­lic will on­ly be able to ful­ly as­sess the im­pact of the strike on busi­ness­es in South Trinidad and the rest of the coun­try once the ac­tion gets un­der­way.

How­ev­er, he ad­mit­ted it could prove to be a hor­rif­ic or­deal for many.

“Gov­ern­ment work­ers as well, they need to utilise the maxi taxis. Even the taxis are not enough, they are more ex­pen­sive than the maxi taxi to get to their places of work if they have med­ical ap­point­ments. And it even in­fil­trates fur­ther down in that school chil­dren, school is in ses­sion. And ex­ams, this is a crit­i­cal time for school chil­dren.”

He added that the con­se­quences could rip­ple through the wider econ­o­my, af­fect­ing in­dus­tries not im­me­di­ate­ly as­so­ci­at­ed with pub­lic trans­porta­tion.

“The gas sta­tions will be im­pact­ed. If the ve­hi­cles are not on the road, they don’t need to go to the gas sta­tion. It has the po­ten­tial to re­al­ly im­pact every sin­gle per­son in the coun­try.”

In an in­ter­view with Guardian Me­dia, Down­town Own­ers and Mer­chants As­so­ci­a­tion (DO­MA) pres­i­dent Gre­go­ry Aboud agreed that while the ex­act fi­nan­cial loss can­not yet be quan­ti­fied, busi­ness­es are al­ready nav­i­gat­ing a dif­fi­cult eco­nom­ic cli­mate.

“What I can say is that at this time, we are ex­pe­ri­enc­ing some weak­ness in over­all trade and busi­ness vol­ume. Every­body’s talk­ing about it,” Aboud said.

He added that while maxi taxi op­er­a­tors may have le­git­i­mate qualms and com­plaints, hold­ing the coun­try to ran­som will be dif­fi­cult for cit­i­zens to en­dure.

“The maxi taxi op­er­a­tors have le­git­i­mate com­plaints; we need to know what they are. We cer­tain­ly don’t sup­port the idea of them at­tempt­ing to dam­age the op­er­a­tions of the T&T econ­o­my. And of course, they are hop­ing to dam­age it, be­cause they are hop­ing to get some re­ac­tion from the au­thor­i­ties and from the pub­lic to cry out and say, ‘Look, please. Find out what these peo­ple want and try and solve it with them.’”

Aboud warned maxi-taxi op­er­a­tors not to put them­selves in a po­si­tion where the pub­lic learns to do with­out their ser­vices al­to­geth­er.

Nev­er­the­less, he said this week’s strike ac­tion should prompt re­newed di­a­logue to ad­dress the coun­try’s chaot­ic trans­porta­tion sys­tem, in­clud­ing pub­lic trans­port chal­lenges and dai­ly traf­fic jams.

In an ef­fort to mit­i­gate wors­en­ing traf­fic woes in the cap­i­tal city with this week’s strike ac­tion, Aboud urged com­muters to car­pool.

“I’m not sure that bring­ing your own car is go­ing to be the op­tion. I would sug­gest that if you are al­ready us­ing your own car on a nor­mal ba­sis to come in­to the city, you could con­tin­ue to do that,” he said.

“But while you’re on your way, if you could try to as­sist those who don’t have trans­port, be­cause of this ac­tion, by giv­ing them a lift in­to the city.”

Aboud urged maxi-taxi of­fi­cials and the rel­e­vant gov­ern­ment au­thor­i­ties to en­gage in ur­gent di­a­logue to avoid fur­ther dis­rup­tions.