News

Barrel draw most transparent way of giving permits: AG

July 29, 2018 7:53 pm

No one should complain about not getting a taxi permit.

While awarding permits to drivers in Lautoka, Attorney General Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum says that a barrel draw is the most transparent way of giving taxi permits, therefore there shouldn’t be any complains.

Sayed-Khaiyum says that for a number of decades, taxi permits were given by LTA but there was no system as to who should get the permit.

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“We found for a number of years that some people who may have had five or ten taxi permits continue to get taxi permits. Because there was no system in place, they did not know what the criteria was. There was no transparency on why these people got taxi permits and others not.”

Sayed-Khaiyum says this led to corruption.

“So that did not give a lot of confidence to people and when you have those sort of practices taking place, it breeds corruption. The LTA with the review committee came up with a quota system, so depending on the size of the population in the area, then you’ll have the number of taxis based on that. This is transparent basis, no one can complain about this.”

A total of 1, 553 taxi permits were awarded to the drivers, 358 to the Nadi zone 1, 162 for Nadi zone 2 and 1033 for the Lautoka zone.