While City Hall has announced fees for operators using city minibus parks, many of them say they had not signed on to the proposal.
“It was just a discussion not a decision. We didn’t vote on it,” were the words of Terrence Lewis, who was one of the drivers present at a meeting between the City administration and minibus operators last month.
Lewis was responding to an announcement by City Hall that an agreement was reached between the city administration and minibus operators for the operators to pay $100 for every trip they make.
At a press conference on Thursday, Town Clerk Royston King announced that as of Monday, February 8, 2016, minibus operators using bus parks in the city would be expected to pay the city administration $100 every time they use those facilities.
He said they are each to pay the city’s revenue collectors $100 for every trip they take to the city.
According to King, this decision was reached at a meeting between the city administration and the bus operator but the operators denied the claim.
“We had suggested a fee of $200 a day but the operators suggested $100 a trip,” King claimed.
He explained that implementation of this fee collection is a part of the city’s efforts to have better traffic management, control and regulation within the city.
This fee in addition to a special fee which is still to be negotiated with taxi drivers will be used, according to King, to upgrade and maintain all minibus and taxi parks.
“We will maintain the parks, provide lights, security and waste disposal services. The have been using the parapets and space which we have to maintain and we are just asking them to contribute to its maintenance,” he said.
The city has already put in place toll booths which will be monitored by revenue collectors and investigators as well as constabulary ranks as part of a system to ensure compliance.
The drivers are, however, not on board.
“$100 a trip would break us,” Joseph George declared to Stabroek News. George, who operates along route between the city and Lodge, explained that he makes ten trips a day and earns about $10,000.
“I driving somebody bus and the bus is $5,000 a day with 8 or 10 trips. We calling 80 but people paying 60, so when I mek my money I got to pay 5 for the boss, 4 for gas and now a thousand for the city. What I carrying home to me wife and children?” George asked.
Another driver, Darnell Wilson, further explained that the drivers on his route are plagued by competition, which makes the new fee a serious burden.
“When you reach Lodge to come back, they got South bus, 40 bus and 48 bus coming through. We talk to [‘A’ Division Commander Clifton] Hicken and he put police there but the problem still exists. My bus only got nine seat. Sometimes, I making 540 on a trip and them sometime we coming down with two or three people. It just ain’t profitable,” Wilson said.
The drivers stressed that they don’t have a problem with paying a fee but are upset about the amount and frequency of the proposed collection system.
“We looking at a system to pay so much money per day like a two or three or four hundred a day,” George said. Another driver suggested that the drivers even pay the same amount as the vendors who operate on the streets surrounding the parks. “We could pay a $1,000 a week. Come on Monday collect you money and give we a receipt,” he suggested.
Others suggested that they offer the city the fees they once paid the touts. With the advent of the line system, which was implemented late last year, touts have become obsolete. These men were previously offered $60 to full a bus.
“Let them charge a short drop fare. They starting from nothing and they will get something. A hundred dollar is too much, tek $60 a trip or $200 for the whole day, we can’t give $100 a trip,” one driver said.
While no driver Stabroek News spoke with said that they would stop using the parks. King was asked about this possibility and the traffic problems which might ensue if bus operators choose to “hotplate” or circle the parks instead of using them. King, in response, said measure have already been put in place to prevent such actions.
One of these measures is the use of City Constabulary officers in traffic management. As of last Monday, members of the constabulary have been directing traffic in the city with special focus on commercial areas.
