Dear Editor,
I was standing just behind Minister Robeson Benn in front of the police outpost at Stabroek Market and upon inquiring from a few friends I knew in the media I learnt that his presence there was a result of the big buses he was introducing to help ease commuters’ woes. Along with a few bystanders I was very happy, but that was short-lived because apparently that was just a publicity stunt. The Minister had acceded to the minibus operators’ demand and allowed them to get the forty dollars they have been asking for, and in some areas higher increases.
The commuters eventually have to accept the unconscionable increase and the continuing overload, because this incompetent government has no mechanism in place that could give the commuters a choice.
Editor, in previous letters from myself and a few other writers, I’ve pointed out that there are too many minibuses at the park (unlike the West Demerara speedboat association which only allows a certain number of boats) and only when people are going to and from work do they get work. In the meantime whilst they are waiting for the rush hour they have to waste most of their time sleeping in the bus or playing cards. It is no secret that many of them only work approximately three-four hours and as result of that the overcharging gives them a full day’s pay for not working a whole day, thus they make all sorts of excuses about parts being expensive, etc. If the government was serious about helping commuters, they would have monitored the spare parts dealers because most of them import parts valued at five dollars and resell them for forty dollars. Recently most countries reduced the price of gas, but here those that govern us see fit to increase the gas here.
If you go to the Vreed-en-Hoop stelling, you would get a real shock because the exploiters are not satisfied with the unconscionable increase they have recently received, and are demanding an additional forty dollars and over to take you to your destination. Here’s the breakdown: before the government allowed the increase, I used to pay one hundred dollars to reach Zeelugt; after the increase the price list on display in the buses states that the cost to that destination is one hundred and sixty dollars, but in the so-called rush hour, they are demanding an astounding two hundred dollars for that and shorter destinations. At Stabroek Market the Route 32 buses charge from one hundred dollars and up. For short drops they are demanding one hundred dollars against the eighty dollars they agreed to, and most of them drive away with your change when you ask for it. Not everyone remembers to have change on them when they are travelling but that should not make the minibus operators fleece the commuters. That is a one-hundred dollar increase since Minister Benn’s comical show at Stabroek Market in September!
Finally Editor, when I went to complain to the traffic officers about the operators’ demand, they told me that there’s no law against that, and out of the fifty-six members no one sees fit to raise that issue in Parliament. With that in mind there isn’t anything the police could do, although a few months ago, a bank in one of those small villages in America seized an old couple’s home and the local Sheriff helped raise the money and approached the bank to pay off the folks’ debt so they could get back their house. The bank refused saying that they were too late, and the Sheriff along with his deputies walked into the employees parking area and started to find fault with all the vehicles there and began issuing tickets. Today the old couple are comfortably living in their home because the Manager rushed out and changed his mind. I am quite sure the traffic police would find faults on the buses here, and if they needed could assist the commuters, because frankly I am fed up with this matter.
Yours faithfully,
Sahadeo Bates
