Dear Editor,
Please permit me space to bring to the attention to higher officials how some persons use their offices to disrespect other public officials. As a regular traveler on the Supenaam /Parika ferry, I have seen and heard persons openly disrespect the supervisors and staff at the stellings. I recently encountered three worrying situations.
Firstly, many of the priorities passes issued by T&HD do not meet the criteria for priority. Supervisors are instructed that friends and families have to go on the boat unmolested. Many persons have lost sleep just to get on the boat on time and even have to take care of children during the journey. Secondly, is the occurrences of bullyism at the stelling directed primarily towards Supervisors. Only recently a would-be vehicular passenger was overheard reminding a Supervisor of his deceased father-in-law and then Vice-Chairman who used to give him a hard time. The driver threateningly informed the Supervisor that he looks too comfortable on the job. Mind you, this Supervisor ensures that all travelers follow all protocols and possesses a vast number of years of experiences both at Adventure and now Supenaam Stelling. The third incident is identical to the second, above, though with different characters and actors.
It’s a sad situation where persons that are not regular travelers openly abuse supervisors and staff at these stellings because they are not aware of how the system works. As a regular traveler with perishables every week I would usually call the GM for T&HD for priority but would be told that no priority is being issued and that I will have to book and wait my turn. I approached the Supervisors at Parika Stelling a few times to allow me because of the perishables in my possession and was never granted the priority because 1. The perishables I have are not considered as such. 2. You have to have over two tons of perishable. I would count my losses and wait on the next available boat even though I see persons gaining priority passes from T&HD to go on vacation at Lake Mainstay. I don’t abuse TH&D staff because they have to know what they are doing. Given the current situation, I am making the following recommendations:
1. T&HD need to upgrade the systems at these stellings
2. There should be a computerised system that display bookings, priority passes and standby vehicles on a monitor so that all persons can see the list of vehicles booked for the boat which includes priority booked 24 hours before and are there at least 2 hours before the time and know whether they can make the boat or not.
3. Once priority vehicles are not there 2 hours before the time they will go on standby list except for the emergency vehicles and high officials.
With the above recommendations I believe the chaotic situation at the stelling can be curbed and there will be less abuse to staff members.
Sincerely,
Name and Address Provided
