The Land Transport Authority has revealed that fifty applicants out of one thousand five hundred and fifty one candidates who applied for taxi permits submitted false declarations.
Board Chair Vijay Maharaj claims there could be more ineligible candidates surfacing before the closure of the twenty-one day grace period which ends next Tuesday.
Maharaj believes the ineligible applicants were discovered due to the transparency of the barrel process.
“The complaints started coming in to say that so and so was a successful candidate but in fact he has two taxis or his income is more than 30K and he has a couple of jobs- So when that came through – we gave them an opportunity to send their complaints. So that we could check and verify.”
Maharaj is reminding dishonest applicants to surrender their approval letters before the closure of the grace period.
He adds failure to do so will result into criminal charges, whereby the applicant could pay hefty fines or face imprisonment.
The Board Chair says going forward, the LTA will strengthen its monitoring process for applications making it harder for those who falsely apply.
The LTA will now conduct a re-draw of permits whereby the honest remaining one thousand Fijians who missed out in the first barrel draw will be given a chance to obtain a permit.
