Gov’t explanation wanted for taxi license regulations

The Third Standing Committee of the Legislative Assembly (AL) had an internal meeting last Friday to discuss the region’s latest articles on taxi regulations. During the meeting, doubts concerning penalties, licenses, and the installation of equipment inside taxis were raised.

The chairman of the committee, Wong Hin Fai, reported to the media some of the opinions expressed by lawmakers who attended the meeting.

The lawmakers want the government to provide a clear explanation of how permits and licenses will function in future meetings with the committee.

“[This content] cannot be found in the current legal bill. Some articles give us the idea that one permit can be attached to one license only, but others say that one permit can be attached to several licenses,” complained Wong, adding that the regulation is not clear about the cancelation of both permits and licenses.

The law suggests that if a contractor does not return licenses to the government once they expire, then the contractor will be fined a fixed penalty of MOP30,000.

“Why hasn’t the law established upper and lower limits concerning different levels of violations?” asked Wong, adding that there are no punitive measures for repeat offences.

Moreover, Wong reported that the committee pointed out that no additional punishments had been included in the latest taxi regulation regime, other than the main punishments of fines or jail sentences.

In Wong’s understanding, additional penalties could consist, for instance, of banning taxi drivers from operating a taxi for a certain period of time.

Another argument discussed by the committee was related to fake documents.

“If license owners submit fake documents, the licenses will be canceled. When fake documents are involved, the government will only initiate license cancelation procedures after the court has made a verdict [which normally takes two to three years],” Wong noted.

Some members of the committee suggested installing video recording equipment in taxis.

In Wong’s words, the committee wondered “why has the government not yet arranged video recording equipment, and, when it will, is the equipment [including voice recording devices] going to belong to car owners, to license owners, or to the SAR government?”

The new bill writes that if a driver does not follow the service instructions, the driver may be punished. However, no content concerning said punishment has been listed into the bill, according to Wong.

The Third Standing Committee will forward all of its doubts to the government. Government representatives will then be invited to a meeting after the committee finishes another internal meeting, which will take place this week.

The city’s new bill of taxi regulations rules that a taxi driver’s driving license will be revoked if the driver incurs four serious infractions within a five-year period.

The bill also proposes that only companies be able to request concessions for taxi operations, and that both the cars and the taxi drivers should have licenses.