The Tribune

By YOURI KEMP

Tribune Business Reporter

ykemp@tribunemedia.net

The delivery firms previously hailed by the prime minister are now pressing for relaxation of the present lockdown restrictions after being hurt by the immediate total shutdown of many business clients.

Granville Collie, MUTRU's managing director, told Tribune Business: "I can't say that we have picked up a lot of clients since the issuance of the new emergency orders, but with the general COVID-19 emergency orders we did have an increase.

"We have seen a trend upwards in terms of interest, but pretty much all retailers are shut down right now. Definitely people still want to be able to move their products, so there has been an increase in interest, but not necessarily an increase in business - at least not as yet. I expect it to happen, but it hasn't happened as yet."

Mr Collie added: "The overall closure has hurt me because instantly, overnight half of our customers were closed. Whereas we may have been doing five delivery orders for a clothing company, and five delivery orders for a food company and five delivery orders for a hardware company, the minute the government gave that order only the hardware companies are left open.

"So instead of my 15 orders a day I'm now only having five. It has hurt in terms of that, but in terms of inquiries and people interested in the service, the lockdown has helped with building the interest in it."

The first COVID-19 lockdown was imposed on March 20 by Dr Hubert Minnis, which included a national curfew and the closure of multiple industries. This was subsequently relaxed to the point where The Bahamas opened its borders on July 1, but the emergence of a second virus wave - stronger than the one before - resulted in the imposition of even more restrictive measures.

This has left only food stores, gas stations, water depots and pharmacies operational, with hardware stores reduced to curb side and pick-up only. As a result, the commercial client base available to delivery operators has been much-reduced.

"This is a real restriction because the amount of people that are allowed to be open are just categorically too small, it's really too small," Mr Collie said. "Food stores and hardware stores are okay, but I am driving vehicles all day and every day and there are no mechanic shops open so that's crazy, and no tyre shops either.

"Also, all essential services are on the road all of the time, but the fast food places aren't even open. So if you don't bring out your own food in the morning, then you are out of luck. This is really too narrow; they have to open it up to more people and more businesses."

Jamial Rolle, Runnah's chief executive, said: "Things are still steady, but unfortunately with the restaurants it has hurt. But with the custom pick-up feature it has been working out.

"People are wanting more deliveries from our custom pick-up feature. It serves as an errand and courier-type service, so we have had letter deliveries and people buying things from one another and re-sale items. We have also had a few businesses using it for delivering products to the people."

Mr Rolle added: "We have used our time wisely considering that everything in The Bahamas has shut down, so we refined our services in Atlanta, Georgia, where we just got licensing for our Runnah's app. So while things in The Bahamas have stopped we have kept it moving."