Luis González answers Antigua council, highlights taxis: “13 years without updating fares”

The Transport Councillor of the Cabildo of Fuerteventura, Luis González, has defended himself against criticism from the Antigua City Council, which publicly demanded “respect for municipal competencies and for taxi professionals” after denouncing the omission of one of the sector’s associations from the informational signage installed for FEAGA 2026.

The island council stated in a press release that the Cabildo had acted in a “unilateral and unjustified” manner, without prior communication with the City Council, in an area of municipal competence, and demanded the immediate replacement of the signs, arguing that one of the two legally established professional taxi associations in the municipality had been left out.

Specifically, the Antigua City Council noted that two official taxi associations operate in the municipality: the Asociación de Taxi Caleta de Fuste Antigua Primera, reachable at public phone 828 111 999, and the Asociación de Taxis de Antigua, reachable at 928 163 004. According to the Cabildo, one of them did not appear on the signage installed to inform about the service during the fair, causing discontent among sector professionals.

“I think it’s important to clarify this. There really has been no disregard,” the councillor said, adding that the City Council’s note is “very contradictory” and “very difficult to understand.” In his view, the controversy “really makes no sense.”

The island’s Transport head explained that the organization of FEAGA, as in previous editions, included information of interest for users about public transport and taxis. The difference, he points out, is that when the fair programme was prepared the new association had not yet been created, so the information from the previous year—when only one entity operated in the municipality—was used.

“Last year the information was correct because there was a single cooperative, a single taxi association operating in the Antigua City Council. It was the only one that existed,” González said. This year, he added, “a new cooperative has started working, operating,” but the fair organizers “were not aware of that fact” and published the previous year’s data. “They simply forgot to include the new phone number of that new association.”

The councillor insists there was no bad faith or political intent behind the omission.

“It was done with no ill intention, and certainly not to divide the sector,” he emphasized, noting that taxi drivers in Antigua already experience internal division “for other reasons.”

Fuel prices rise… and the rates have stayed the same for 13 years

From there, González shifts the focus of the controversy to what he sees as the real problem for the sector in the municipality: the lack of rate updates.

“We find it quite serious that Antigua is the only municipality in Fuerteventura—and one of the few in the Canary Islands—that has not updated taxi rates in 13 years,” he warned.

According to the councillor, this demand has been conveyed to him by professionals from both taxi groups in Antigua.

“That is a request that taxi drivers from both sides have brought to me,” he affirmed.

He says he has already communicated to the City Council the need to address this update.

“The Antigua City Council must listen to the taxi drivers and update the taxi rates, which, as I said, have not been revised for 13 years,” he proposed.

González recalls that in the intervening years the costs of fuel, vehicle maintenance, and overall service operation have risen, making a tariff review a priority.

“That is indeed important, and I believe it should be reflected and emphasized appropriately,” he defended.

He downplays the seriousness of the signage error and argues that, if the City Council’s main criticism of FEAGA is this issue, the fair has actually been strengthened.

“If that is the only problem, the only complaint the Antigua City Council and the mayor have about FEAGA, then the FEAGA fair has been a resounding success,” he concluded, also congratulating the Primary Sector Councillor Enrique Pérez for the event’s organization.