Jake's View | How Hong Kong’s taxi owners would ensure it’s them, not the drivers, that benefit from a fare increase
With their disproportionate election committee votes, taxi owners are well placed to get their 18 per cent fare increase and pocket the difference themselves
Taxi drivers want up to 18pc rise in fares
SCMP headline, December 11
Let’s start with a little electoral politics. Functional constituencies are not a very representative form of government but some still have a relatively large number of voters.
For instance, there are 88,150 voters in the education constituency for one seat in the Legislative Council. If you are a teacher you get a vote for that seat. In accountancy there are 37,423 voters. If you have a bean counter’s ticket you get a vote for the accountants’ seat.
Then we have the transport constituency. It has only 208 voters for its one seat in the Legislative Council and 40 of those votes are held by taxi owning companies, the single biggest block in the constituency. Taxi drivers, however, get no votes. They are all held by corporates.