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Disgruntled Taxi operator
"Now we are here, in protest of the things he is doing with those taxis. And we do not agree with painting all our taxis yellow because we don't even have the money to do that. He is washing his hands saying that he doesn't have anything to do with this. i don' know if that is true or not. But the thing is, he says the council is involved in mediating between the taxi operators and the owners of the company. These owners of the company brought these taxi vehicles painted yellow and ready to work without consulting every one of us."

Disgruntled Taxi operator 2
"When you go ask for a taxi license for your car, what does the man tells you - join a union. Do they have any union? No. He is the master and he controls things. Out here all of us has family and children to feed. If we allow this man to walk over us what will we end up with? Nothing."

"The government doesn't have any job to give us. If they take us off the streets, it's less money at the gas stations. They dent watch and see how many men are out here working and how many children do they have home to feed. That is the thing I think he needs to look after and stop looking after themselves. It's us out here that have Orange Walk moving. We are making an honest living. We gave problems making $40 a day to pay rent for a vehicle. You have to find $40 gas to work. After that then we will make a dollar. Now we are going to rent a car from someone for $50 a day for 5 years? Come one man, behave yourselves."

Disgruntled Taxi operator 3
"IF the mayor doesn't want to give a Belizean one taxi plate. How come he will give a lots of plates to one person? That is very unfair."

Disgruntled Taxi operator 4
"If the mayor do not want to have a meeting with us again, the cooperation with all of us taxi drivers who are here, will find out how much will a lawyer cost and he will face a lawyer and the lawyer will fight a case for us."

That is a lot of heat being dished out on the mayor and the Orange Walk town council but according to the council it is all wasted energy on an issue that never existed in the first place. When we spoke to Deputy Mayor Ian Cal, he told us it was all just one big misunderstanding.

Ian Cal, Deputy Mayor
"The council for many months has passed a resolution, where we will not allow any more taxis in Orange Walk because as is the market is saturated. We have a lot of taxis in Orange Walk. What the investor is doing, is brought in some vehicles which they are allowing existing taxi men to negotiate with them and in turn going to a lease to own. Any existing taxi operator who has a vehicle, some of them have been dilapidated, they need upgrade - they can go to them and they would give them the vehicle on a lease to own basis."

"If they don't want to deal with this investor, they can go to the bank and deal with the bank. They have options, but the council is not forcing anyone to go and upgrade their vehicle."

Bottom line is, the taxi operators are not being forced to upgrade their vehicles, paint them or do anything for that matter. The opportunity that has presented itself to them to upgrade is an independent venture by a private business firm. The only role of the council in this regard is to facilitate the transfer of taxi license numbers from one vehicle to the next should anyone chose to upgrade or simply change vehicles.