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And, keeping it on matters from City Hall, for the past 4 years, Belize City has been issuing a limited number of taxi licenses. That’s because back in 2012, when the Darrell Bradley City Council was first elected, they made the decision to enforce a strict moratorium, after conducting their own studies and concluding that the City had an excess of taxis. 

Well, they’ve since relaxed from that perspective a bit and for a few years now, they’ve been in consultation with the major taxi associations about who should be allowed to get new taxi plates, and under what conditions. 

Today, City Hall was supposed to announce the lifting of that ban, but it appears that they haven’t reached that point yet. Today, we asked the Mayor why the ban must still continue:

Darrell Bradley, Belize City Mayor
"We are in the process of doing that. We had a public consultation, it was a while back we did a strap hold in relation to where persons were in terms of stakeholders, we're talking about taxi operators and people who are the heads of taxi unions and so forth where they were in relation to if they wanted the moratorium in place, if they wanted the moratorium lifted. One of the concerns that we also have is the fact that a lot people in Belize City use plates from outside Belize City so that they would go to a national transport or they would get a plate in Dangriga or Punta Gorda or Corozal and then they would work in Belize City. So that one of the things that I'm keenly concerned about is the fact that you would have persons who are law abiding in Belize City and they would respect the issue of the moratorium and then they would be told they can't get a taxi license but what would happen is that you would have other people who would kind of circumvent the system. One of the and counsellor Bernard Pitts has been playing a leadership role on this, one of the areas where he is suggesting is that we leave it to the taxi unions and if you get  recommendation because we would want all taxi drivers to be a part of a union. So that what the new system that is being proposed would likely entail is we would issue licenses but through the union so that if you are a part of a union, you will be paying your union dues, the union then pays for the taxi spots then the union recommends you to get a taxi place then we would honour that."

Daniel Ortiz
"Sir is the city able to accommodate new taxis at this time?"

Darrell Bradley, Belize City Mayor
"There are multiple factors. One of the things you have to really appreciate is that there are limited economic opportunities for people so that it's easy for you as a reporter to come and tell me well the city has too many taxis, I know that. If I would have my way in the strictness of the law I would actually lessen the amount of taxis in the vehicles but there are other considerations. You have families; taxi man is an income earner for his household."

According to Bradley, they’ve taken each new applicant on a case by case basis.