The Land Transport Authority maintains the system used to carry out the taxi lottery is one that meets international standards.

Board chair Vijay Maharaj, says before they carried out the first taxi lottery, they did their homework on what was the common practice abroad.

Maharaj says with the freeze initiated in 2011 and then uplifted seven years later, they wanted to ensure the issuance of taxi permits was fair and the process was fully transparent.

“The management has actually, the PSV department, they studied as to what ratio we should use of 1 to 8 or 1 to 10 to population and all that and this was taken from the way things are done overseas as well and then we came, the management actually came up with a proposal as to how the ratio should work and we applied that ratio in Lautoka and Nadi.”

Meanwhile, the Fiji Taxi Association is taking legal action against the LTA to stop the issuing of more taxi permits.

Association president Rahben Singh, says there are already too many taxis and more permits will hamper their business.

A court hearing on the matter is scheduled for the 4th of October in the Lautoka High court.