The As­so­ci­a­tion of Maxi Taxi Op­er­a­tors is call­ing on the Gov­ern­ment to crack down on 'PH' dri­vers, fol­low­ing the trag­ic death of 12-year-old Mer­cedez Layne, whose life was cut short in cir­cum­stances linked to a PH (pri­vate hire) taxi dri­ver.

Last week, the as­so­ci­a­tion shut down their op­er­a­tions be­tween Mon­day and Wednes­day, cit­ing sev­er­al is­sues they say have been un­ad­dressed by the Min­istry of Trans­port. One of those is­sues has been PH taxi dri­vers op­er­at­ing on many of their routes.

In a state­ment last night, as­so­ci­a­tion sec­re­tary Vick­ash Kissoon­dath ex­pressed deep sor­row over the in­ci­dent and re­newed their call for ur­gent col­lab­o­ra­tion among au­thor­i­ties to ad­dress what it de­scribes as a grow­ing threat to pub­lic safe­ty.