Taxi passenger group hands thousands of signatures to DSAT

Andrew Scott

The Macau Taxi passengers Association (MTPA) yesterday submitted a petition containing 5,470 signatures to the Transport Bureau (DSAT), urging the government to improve taxi services in the city and reduce unlawful activities committed by Macau’s taxi drivers.
MTPA president Andrew Scott has described the number of signatures they have collected – mainly from local residents, over a period of about three weeks – as amazing. “I know many petitions in Macau are [gathering] 200, 300 [or] 500 signatures. It’s very unusual to have a petition with 5,470 signatures,” he said.
Mr Scott hopes the petition is “another step in the right direction” towards putting pressure on the government to fix the taxi problem for Macau. “This is an issue that touches absolutely every person in Macau, and the taxis are a real disgrace at the moment,” he said. “We’ve got violence happening with taxis; we’ve got taxis ripping people off; we’ve got so many things, all documented on our Facebook group, and the government really has to do something about it”. The president hopes the new secretary for Transport and Public Works, Raimundo Rosário, will take notice of the petition.
Moreover, the MTPA president called again for the government to allow undercover officers to help enforce taxi regulations, and to prosecute taxi drivers. He pointed out that almost all responses to the recent public consultation on taxi regulation stipulate the dispatch of undercover officers.
“In the last two weeks, I’ve heard of three cases of [taxi] passengers or potential passengers being violently beaten up in the Venetian West Lobby. That’s really terrible. So, we need enforcement and police down there every night that are going to do something about it and not just at that place, but all over Macau,” he said. “We need electronic licenses, audio recording, all the things the government put in the consultation document… and [the measures recommended by] the MTPA,” he added.
While understanding that relevant legislation has to first be passed by the Legislative Assembly, Scott insisted that the government has to implement some measures “straight away before somebody is seriously injured, or maybe even killed”. “I hope that doesn’t happen. But the way things are right now, somebody could easily be killed by a taxi driver or in a confrontation around a taxi,” he warned.