Eliz­a­beth Gon­za­les

To­ba­go Cor­re­spon­dent

The To­ba­go Maxi Taxi Dri­vers’ As­so­ci­a­tion says there is no need for par­ents and stu­dents to wor­ry about trans­port ser­vices when the new school term starts, de­spite calls by one dri­ver for a boy­cott over un­paid fees.

This comes af­ter a man, who said he was a maxi taxi dri­ver, called on his col­leagues to stand with him in protest. He said he was pre­pared to with­hold his ser­vices, even if it meant stand­ing alone, un­til all out­stand­ing monies were paid.

Pres­i­dent Clyde Williams said the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly (THA) owed the as­so­ci­a­tion just over $1 mil­lion for trans­port ser­vices pro­vid­ed dur­ing June and Ju­ly.

He said he was aware of the calls made and which of his mem­bers this is com­ing from. But, he said, the sit­u­a­tion doesn’t re­quire that type of ac­tion at this time.

Williams ex­plained to Guardian Me­dia, “The to­tal bill for us is just over one mil­lion dol­lars. And that is for June and Ju­ly. They re­ceived a check of 700,000 or some­thing. The bal­ance is about $200,000.”

He said the THA had al­ready sent $700,000 to the Pub­lic Trans­port Ser­vice Cor­po­ra­tion (PTSC), but the re­main­ing bal­ance of around $200,000 was still out­stand­ing.

“They said that’s all the mon­ey they have, which is $700,000, and they’re go­ing to pay it off be­fore the month end,” Williams added.

Re­gard­ing the calls for a boy­cott by one dri­ver and whether oth­er mem­bers shared that view, Williams said, “I’m not. On­ly now I’m hear­ing about that. I’m not sure. Just what you said to me, I didn’t hear it be­fore.”

He clar­i­fied that while some in­di­vid­ual mem­bers might have their own opin­ions, the boy­cott was not an of­fi­cial po­si­tion of the as­so­ci­a­tion.

“There may be in­di­vid­ual mem­bers. Peo­ple are free, but that didn’t come up in an as­so­ci­a­tion meet­ing. So I don’t know if it’s one mem­ber, but I think it’s about 60, one of us em­ploy in the ser­vice. And you know, peo­ple are free, it’s in­de­pen­dent, con­ces­sion­aire in­de­pen­dent, and they are free to protest and do what they want and go in­to THA and PTSC and get in­for­ma­tion and so on. So that’s not an as­so­ci­a­tion view,” Williams said.

He re­as­sured that trans­port ser­vices would con­tin­ue as nor­mal, es­pe­cial­ly with the school term start be­ing ex­tend­ed by one week.

“I think every­thing will be cleared up be­fore school. And then we have an ex­ten­sion, one- week ex­ten­sion, school and the THA promise to pay every­thing be­fore school. So I don’t think it’s any­thing to wor­ry about,” he said.

How­ev­er, Williams said he hoped fu­ture pay­ments would be more time­ly, adding, “We are still hop­ing that there can be an im­prove­ment in our pay­ment. Our pay­ments can be time­ly.”