Dear Editor,
I gather from recent reports that the government is contemplating the reintroduction of government owned buses for passenger transport in Guyana. Guyanese who by chance had cause to pass by the old graveyard of hundreds of derelict and scavenged Leyland, Tata, Swedish and Brazilian buses on the outskirts of Georgetown some years ago, should be forgiven for having visions of a similar occurrence a few years hence. One cannot help but wonder if government owned buses is the viable long-term solution to the passenger transportation problem of the country. The care and handling of government owned vehicles over the years must certainly be a cause for concern.
During the 1950s and 1960s, Demerara, the most populated county in Guyana, had a good passenger bus transportation system. It is likely that the situation was the same in the other areas, however, I can write of Demerara based on personal knowledge and experience. These buses were privately owned and operated and although the roads were generally in awful condition, they ran daily and on time. As well, fares were only hiked ‘once in a blue moon.’ The simple reason for the efficiency and effectiveness of the service was the care and maintenance of the equipment by the owners, and the buses lasted and lasted.
The economy benefited tremendously from these buses. They were built in Guyana on chassis imported from the United Kingdom. As such, a host of skilled trades-people found employment, with carpenters doing the woodwork, riveters doing the metal work and upholsterers doing the seat cushions. These skills have now been lost, thereby contributing to the unemployment situation. An interesting feature of these buses was a structure called the ‘tray’ which was built on top of the buses and used to carry produce and fish to market, bicycles for long distance travellers, etc.
Many old-timers from the lower East Coast villages of Ann’s Grove, Belfield, Golden Grove and Buxton will recall buses with names such as Princess Anne, Golden Boy, Caribbean Express and Buxton Pride, which transported people, fish, fruit and ground provisions. As well, many postmen and policemen who resided in Georgetown but worked in the villages had their bicycles transported by these buses. And school children mingled with mango vendors as they headed to their respective destinations to or from Georgetown.
Not to be outdone, those on the longer routes between Georgetown and Rosignol had names such as British Commander, Queen Elizabeth, Duke of Edinburgh, Hamlet, Luxury Liner and Princess Yasmin. These brought the ‘country’ folks to the city and ensured that garden vegetables such as ochro, bora, squash, etc, and live chickens reached the city dwellers of Georgetown. In those days there were no sellers of plucked chicken in the city, and the citizens of Georgetown depended on the ‘fowl’ sellers from the countryside for their chicken.
An interesting fact about these buses was that they were all ‘Indian’ owned. The owners worked hard (some were rice farmers) and prospered. Unfortunately, when government owned buses came on the scene, the private owners lost their licences and many of them were left to rot with no compensation to the owners who had performed a valuable service for decades. Needless to say, the government owned system of the later years never equalled, much less surpassed, the service of the private owners. And the cost to taxpayers, both financially and in terms of quality of service, of the government owned buses? Incalculable.
Yours faithfully,
Harry Hergash
