Politicians should be restricted from using the issuance of Licenses for Political mileage while background checks should be conducted on the recipients of these licenses.
PHILIPSBURG:--- With the arrest of yet another taxi driver that are allegedly involved in criminal activities the Government of St. Maarten, especially the Ministry of TEATT should implement some stricter policies for the issuance of taxi/ bus and hulp chauffeurs licenses.
Some years ago a taxi driver was convicted for his involvement in human smuggling. On Monday police arrest a 34 year old taxi driver for the planning/masterminding of the armed robbery of Oro Diamante that claimed the life of bike patrol Gamali Benjamin.
SMN News received information that the suspect now in custody is allegedly involved in other armed robberies mostly those that were committed at jewelry stores. However, this information could not be confirmed as police is still busy investigating the case surrounding the taxi driver that was arrested on Monday.
Taxi Drivers are often called the island’s ambassadors since they are the ones that deal with almost every tourist that visit St. Maarten. The lives of almost all visitors are placed in the hands of taxi drivers, therefore it is governments’ duty to ensure that they issue licenses to people that will not put the lives of people at risk or those that would even threaten the country’s main economic pillar.
Several taxi drivers contacted SMN News on Thursday when this medium published that a taxi driver was arrested for armed robbery and is allegedly involved in the Oro Diamante robbery. Those that contacted SMN News said that there are too many hulp chauffeurs working for politicians and people that already have permanent work but they managed to obtain taxi and bus licenses through their affiliation with certain politicians. “As taxi drivers that have been in field for years we are ashamed of the behavior and actions of our colleagues. Some of them are accused of embezzlement, while others are involved in masterminding armed robberies. We have to blame government, especially those former commissioners and Ministers that abused their power when leaving office to issue hundreds of licenses to almost anyone. We have more foreigners driving taxis and buses today, most of them don’t even have the Dutch nationality, but they are given the hulp chauffeurs license to work for politicians and persons in high places. Our call to the new and incoming government is to put an end to this, there is a time period that hulp chauffeurs could work for the holders of taxi and bus permits. It’s not something permanent and the rules needs to be applied. Most of all government should start some sort of screening process before they issue these licenses because giving licenses to people that are involved in criminal activities does not do the country any good. We also believe that government should review the passing on of the licenses to relatives, the license belong to government not the holder and it should be used as an inheritance as is the case now. The owner of taxi 375 is a well-known man who worked as a taxi driver for years without being involved in any type of criminal activities but since taxi 375 is known as “Mandola” everyone calls his son the same name which today creates some confusion. The father is already old but if the system did not allow him to pass down his permit to his son this would not have happened.”
The taxi drivers went on to say government granted a concession to the Dutch Taxi Association and now three of its former board members were suspended from working at the harbor because they allegedly embezzled the association’s monies.
