President Ibrahim Mohamed Solih has spoken out against Speaker Mohamed Nasheed's taxi policy.
As part of the Maldives Democratic Party (MDP)'s presidential primary campaign, Speaker Mohamed Nasheed met with taxi drivers on Thursday and announced his intention for the state to take over the operation of taxis to solve the problem of congestion in Male' City.
Responding to Nasheed's policies at a campaign rally held in Baa Atoll Eydhafushi today, the President said that the public should deeply think about what candidates say.
The President said that talks of state interfering with private businesses would not be tolerated before, but that some people, implying Nasheed, had spoken about the state assuming control of the taxi system.
Referring to Nasheed's meeting, the President said that he did not like the idea of taking over the taxi system and hiring drivers, noting that this was not a feasible solution.
The President said the government should find ways to provide new taxis for drivers on a long term repayment policy.
"What we need to do is find new taxis and hand over the new vehicles to taxi drivers so that they can pay off the loan on installment basis. This is what we have planned," the President said.
President Solih said that this year, the state will bring in and hand over cars to taxi drivers on a long-term payment basis.
At a meeting with taxi drivers on Thursday, Nasheed said there were about 1,500 taxis in Malé and the number of taxis should be kept at a certain level to solve the problem of traffic congestion in the City.
Nasheed's proposed policy is to set a limit on the number of taxis that can be driven and impose a levy on taxis which exeed the set limit. Nasheed also said that he intends to teach drivers other skills and give them jobs such as driving buses.
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