The Tribune

By YOURI KEMP

Tribune Business Reporter

ykemp@tribunemedia.net

Jitney drivers are “totally irate” and “sorely displeased” after being left out of the latest emergency powers orders that allowed for commercial activity to resume on August 31.

Harrison Moxey, the United Public Transportation Company’s (UPTC) president, told Tribune Business yesterday that his members are “totally irate” about not being able to restart the bussing system on August 31. He also said: “We are going to have something to say about that, but we are sorely displeased about it.”

Mr Moxey added: “If you are going to open up the businesses then people need to get to work, we need to get back to work and at the same time we are not hearing anything about any stimulus or any relief package for any of us and we have been suffering now for six months.”

“We have had it up to the sky with it,” said Mr Moxey.

Jitneys were allowed to resume operations on July 1, after having been shut down since the end of March, only to be shut down again in early August with no indication as to when they will resume operations.

Mr Moxey said about the length of time his members have been out of business: “We’re planning to do something for today, we are sorely displeased about this. We don’t feel as if we are being considered, we don’t feel as if we are being respected and we are just being pushed aside and we are totally flat on our faces suffering through the whole ordeal.”

The emergency powers, COVID pandemic No 4, dated October, 2020, state that no person shall offer or seek to hire any private or public bus services. Taxi drivers, however, may operate under the guidelines issued by the ministry of tourism and approved by the ministry of health.

Mr Moxey added: “We hoped that by this time consideration would have been given to us in transportation. We have invested to make all of the necessary requirements for the government with the protocols established for public transportation and here it is the competent authority is opening again and we have no idea as to when we are actually going to be able to begin operations and there is no kind of relief for us at this time.

“We are at our wits end and nobody seems to care about it. People need to get to work and now they are going to be hacking and trying to hitch-hike and nobody is picking you up alongside the road because of the COVID-19 fear. This does not make any sense to us in the way that this is being done and we are sore displeased about it,’ Mr Moxey said.

Rudolph Taylor, the Bahamas Unified Bus Drivers Union’s (BUDU) president, said: “Everybody is just hopeful that they can go back on the road. No indication as yet from the government on when we can go back to work, but we are just waiting patiently and hoping that it will be the case that we will soon be back on the road because even the passengers are not begging us and asking us when are we going to come back on the road?”

Mr. Taylor added: “Some of my passengers are paying hackers some $25 to get where they have to go and they need the buses to be back on the road, so they want us as bus drivers to put a greater effort forward to put pressure on the government to get us back on the road.”

Mr Taylor says that the buses not being on the road is costing his regular passengers dearly who depend on the National Insurance Board (NIB) benefits in order for them to get around and do certain things and said, “this is really hard”.

“We will have a meeting sometime soon to iron out things with our members. They were thinking that they were going to be one of the industries that were going to be opened up, because we have all of the protocols in place to make sure we can get people back and forth to work safely,” said Mr Taylor.