THE Alliance Owners of Public Transport (AOPT) has instructed operators of public service vehicles (PSVs) to go ahead and charge a fare of Bds$2 for children riding on the buses.
As previously promised, this came into effect as of yesterday, as students returned to school just after the Easter vacation. However, Roy Raphael, Chairman of the AOPT, has indicated that PSV operators can still use their discretion as to whether or not they will accept the usual Bds$1.50 that students have been paying previously.
“Bus fare in Barbados is regulated by Government. The Government has not (pointed out) to us if we should charge children 75 cents, $1.50 what. We can’t go over $2, because bus fare is $2. What has been happening over time though, is that persons who are not Association members were charging children in school uniform at their own discretion $1.50. Because of the high insurance rate, the high court costs and so we no longer could absorb the 50 cents, so we are forced to push our bus fare up for everybody to $2, effective from (yesterday). It will have an effect on school children because they are the ones that the parents have to look for the additional 50 cents more to accommodate the ride,” Raphael indicated.
“We are also saying that our operators can also use their discretion as well, because obviously everybody would not have heard the information about the hike, but what we are saying is use your discretion like some of us would have done in the past. If a child has $1.50, I am not saying that you should leave that child at the bus stop, but you can take the children to school and encourage them to speak to their parents and say to them, ‘look, we need to pay the 50 cents extra,’” the AOPT Chairman added.
He meanwhile stressed that the matter is still open for discussion with relevant ministries, such as the Ministry of Transport and Works and the Ministry of Finance.
“We are open to Government for discussion. We did have a meeting with the Minister of Transport on this before. We’ve had advice from our attorney before we would have made a public statement, but we are still open for discussion,” he stressed.
“I said earlier that we felt like we were being turned around by the Ministry of Transport and the Ministry of Finance as it relates to duty-free concessions on our parts for our vehicles, so we have no choice but to replace back the 50 cents that we would have lost due to the fact that nobody seems to want to get back to us,” Raphael meanwhile lamented. (RSM)