Leased Taxis Provide a Lifeboat for Cuba’s State-Run Company
HAVANA TIMES – Every morning, before the sun has risen over the Escambray mountains in Cuba’s Sancti Spiritus region, Alex adjusts the rearview mirror of the modern sedan he’s been driving for over five years. It’s not his, but he cares for it as if it were: he rents it from the State-run “Taxis Cuba” Company, but he’s responsible for gasoline, repairs and air conditioning.
“Either I maintain it, or I don’t work,” he summarizes. Hundreds of drivers like Alex make it possible for the state company to keep rolling amid Cuba’s seemingly endless economic crisis.
A worker from the company, who asked to remain anonymous, recognized that “we’re dependent on the private sector, to cover routes that the state fleet simply can’t sustain.”
2018: a new era
The private transportation scene in Cuba began to change in October 2018 when the government passed a package of new regulations. For the first time, various forms of services and rentals were authorized, officially opening the door to the massive entry of private drivers into the “Taxis Cuba” system.
The reformed regulations established three new categories of mutually exclusive taxi services: routed, free, and high-comfort or classic cars.
For drivers aspiring to operate high-comfort cars, the only option was to rent these vehicles from the Taxis Cuba Company, which had been experimenting with a tourism-oriented model since 2012.
One of the fundamental advances was the creation of the legal figure of the transport renter. This allowed private individuals who were not owners to apply for operating licenses for cars rented from other individuals or – by extension – from state-owned companies such as Taxis Cuba. The latter company then began immediately to expand this arrangement, in response to the crisis in its vehicle fleet.
State opens new doors to private drivers
At the end of 2018, Havana – the nerve center of Cuban transportation – became the laboratory for a unique experiment within the state sector: the establishment of fixed routes for taxis managed by private carriers.
The measure as announced on national television, with details offered by Vice Minister of Transportation Marta Oramas, marked an inflection point, not only in the organization of taxi services, but in the way the Cuban government began to envision the collaboration – and dependence – of a self-employed drivers’ sector.
The essence of the experiment was to create 23 specific routes within the capital, where transport operators could operate under clear rules, with regulated prices and more favorable material conditions than those that had existed up to that point.
These drivers, while retaining ownership or leasing their vehicles, gained access to incentives that would have been unthinkable years earlier: the possibility of purchasing fuel in national currency, access to the provincial network of state-owned repair shops, spare parts at a 20% discount, and some formal operating guarantees.
Behind the apparent improvement lay a tacit acknowledgment: the state was incapable of maintaining its fleet.
Years of crisis, the lack of foreign currency, and an obsolete vehicle fleet had left Taxis Cuba in a critical situation. Instead of promoting a purely state-run solution, the company opted for a hybrid formula: transferring the day-to-day responsibility for maintenance, repairs, finding parts, and getting fuel to private drivers.
“At first, it was a relief to have access to cheap gasoline, but maintaining a car has never been an easy task in Cuba,” Alex, from Sancti Spíritus, told El Toque.
“Taxis Cuba” always comes up on top”
“At first, it was a relief to know that I could control my own work schedule and, if I worked more, I could earn more. But maintenance is my responsibility, as is fuel, which is now paid for in foreign currency, so there’s no cushion to rest on,” Alex added.
“We pay the company a fixed price – in my case, 125 Cuban pesos (CUP) a day – even if I don’t work that day or the car breaks down. That forces you to find a quick solution to everything, for the sake of your own budget and that of your family. Some months I make a profit and others I don’t. Between gas, car maintenance, and payments to Taxis Cuba plus my taxes, I often come up short,” he added.
René Casanova, another taxi driver from Camajuaní, in Villa Clara, says his situation is very similar. “Once a month, I settle up with the company and pay what I owe, but if something breaks, I have to fix it on my own. If you’re too honest, you’ll have no business left. Obviously, I don’t report everything I earn, but Taxis Cuba will always come out on top, because they charge me anyway whether I work or not.”
In Alex’s case, as his car is very comfortable, he divides his days between the trips assigned to him by the company and private trips to the airport or hotels for visiting Cubans, charged in foreign currency. Alex charges $80 in cash for a 90 kilometer (56-miles) ride (180 kms if we count his return trip).
A car battery in Cuba, according to social media quotes, can cost up to US $140, a tire up to $115, and a liter of regular gasoline currently sells for 350 CUP. Meanwhile, at state-owned service stations, when fuel is available, the price of a liter of premium gasoline is $1.30, which means that filling a16-gallon tank costs $78.
Clearly, self-employment with a rented car from Taxis Cuba isn’t exempt from tensions: expensive gas, difficulties with maintenance, and all the responsibility left to the driver. Still, in their everyday lives, taxi drivers like Alex and René are grateful for the opportunity to have a means of making a living that, though complicated at times, allows them to continue working and moving around on an island that is ever more immobile.
First published by El Toque in Spanish and translated and posted in English by Havana Times.