-denies bowing to protest
A scheduled meeting between President Bharrat Jagdeo and Route 50 (Georgetown to Rosignol) minibus operators was yesterday called off and the Office of the President (OP) rejected suggestions that it was arranged because of a protest by the operators.
OP, in a statement issued yesterday afternoon, said that “it wishes to correct the inaccurate statement in today’s [yesterday’s] Stabroek News attributed to the West Berbice minibus operators that President Bharrat Jagdeo’s agreement to meet them was because of their protest action on Tuesday.” It added, “President Jagdeo had agreed to meet the operators on their concerns about the new zoning regulations before their protest action outside the Office of the President.” The statement said the meeting was arranged in response to a letter sent to the President by the Route 50 Minibus Association on September 3 and that a date for the meeting was pending. “It is therefore clearly misleading for anyone to claim that the President agreed to a meeting because of the protest by the bus operators,” the statement said. It added that “the proposed meeting has been cancelled” and did not state the reasons why.
OP Press and Publicity Officer Kwame McCoy insisted yesterday that contact had been made with the minibus operators indicating the President’s willingness to meet with them some time before Tuesday. McCoy said he was not in a position at the time to say when the information was passed on to the association, since the President’s secretary had already left for the day. He said, however, that it would have been after September 3, since this is when the correspondence from the association was received.
Earlier this week, Route 50 minibus operators engaged in a strike to protest new zoning regulations which prevent them from transporting passengers across the Berbice River Bridge. After protesting in Berbice on Monday, the operators came to the city, protesting at the Square of the Revolution and OP. They were joined by activists Mark Benschop and Freddie Kissoon.
President of the Route 50 Minibus Association Keith Alfred told this newspaper on Tuesday evening that following the group’s picketing exercise outside of OP, Jagdeo’s secretary had called and indicated his willingness to meet them. He said the date of the meeting would have been confirmed on Friday. Alfred said the strike had been called off based on this communication.
When contacted yesterday, Alfred said he was unaware that the meeting had been called off and said the operators were still waiting on a call from OP on Friday. While acknowledging that the association had sent a letter to the President highlighting their concerns, he repeated that a response was only received on Tuesday afternoon.