Popular CPPCC delegate barred from cab fare hike public hearing

After talk over the weekend that a third proposal would be put forward at Monday’s public hearing on if or how to raise the starting fare for taxis in Guangzhou, no third proposal appeared. The first proposal, which would have seen an automatic 30% surcharge on all fares between 10pm and 6am, is dead in the water, and the second proposal to scrap the RMB 2 ‘gas tax’ and just raise the starting price to 10 RMB seems to be the way Guangzhou’s price control administration will go when it announces its final decision early next month.

While the second proposal has won the city government’s support, consumers don’t want to see a price hike and drivers say that even with rising gas prices, a price hike isn’t necessary. What often gets left out of the discussion is the fact that taxi companies don’t just charge drivers high rent to use the cars each month, they also impose a further ‘tea water tax’. Not only that, but the amount of the tea water tax ranges widely from several thousand a month to as much as RMB 50-60,000. Government-owned taxi companies charge a smaller tea water tax and generally only employ Guangdong residents. Privately-owned taxi companies are where one sees exorbitant tea water taxes imposed, used to gouge out-of-province drivers who are left with little choice but to shut up and pay up, aware that there are thousands of others more than willing to do the job. This is one reason why they don’t just go on strike, the other being that the last time Guangzhou cabbies tried that, the organizers all got sent to prison.

However, Monday’s hearing also presented some insight into how this kind of public deliberation just isn’t working as local journalists were in force at the hotel where the hearing was held. The city’s price control administration’s determination to strong-arm through the proposal of its choice was made evident when Han Zhipeng, a member of Guangzhou People’s Political Consultative Conference was barred from entering. Reporters from GZTV’s muckraking G4 news program were among those at the scene, see their report further down or watch it now here.

Opposition not welcome

Han has received widespread public support since he began crusading on behalf of taxi drivers (and consumers) in mid-June after a driver surnamed Wang decided to try and expose the ‘tea water tax’ as the real problem Guangzhou’s cab industry currently faces. Wang and Han teamed up on the issue, talking to media and lambasting different government departments who refused to get involved. Han’s intention was to introduce his third proposal at Monday’s hearing. Han’s proposal most likely wouldn’t have passed anyway as his opposition to ‘regional racism’ hiring practices and mission to see a hefty reduction or at least some equality in imposition of the tea water tax put him in conflict with a lot of add-on revenue, not to mention the touchy subject of business-government collusion.

After getting the runaround from price control administration employees at the table outside the hearing, instead of trying to force his way in, Han waits until his fellow political consultative committee members and others involved in the hearing come out for bathroom breaks, asking them to introduce the third proposal on his behalf. Mumble, mumble, at 3:30, the dumbfounded man from the price control administration starts pulling people away from cameras and says interviews can be done after the hearing concludes. Han starts clapping and mocks the fellow, then throws his hands up in despair. “I’ve never been ‘harmonized’ so roughly and gently at the same time before,” Han later says to G4 reporters.

After seeing Han’s treatment on Monday, Wang, the cab driver, seems to have given up on trying to find a government body willing to address testimony he’s collected nearly 30 taxi drivers who pay an average monthly tea water tax of RMB 50,000, as well as his demand for RMB 230,000 in compensation for the taxi and retribution he has received since going public. At 6am yesterday, police confiscated a canister of gasoline Wang had just purchased and intended to use to set himself on fire. At 10am, he climbed up on a wall outside Guangzhou’s transportation authority building and jumped. Wang survived but broke his leg in the fall and is now in hospital seeking treatment. Han wrote on his microblog account that a meeting had been set up for this morning in which Wang, Han and people from Wang’s former employer, Longde Taxi, to talk about what comes next.

Wang's former ride