JavaScript is disabled in your web browser or browser is too old to support JavaScript. Today almost all web pages contain JavaScript, a scripting programming language that runs on visitor's web browser. It makes web pages functional for specific purposes and if disabled for some reason, the content or the functionality of the web page can be limited or unavailable.

Saturday, July 26, 2025

No buses in South West, commuters stranded

by

Radhica De Silva
2394 days ago
20190104
Passangers wait onthe arrival at buses at the PTSC Bus Terminus, Kings Wharf, San Fernando, yesterday.

Passangers wait onthe arrival at buses at the PTSC Bus Terminus, Kings Wharf, San Fernando, yesterday.

KRISTIAN DE SILVA

Pub­lic trans­porta­tion out of the south west­ern penin­su­la ground to a halt yes­ter­day af­ter two dozen bus dri­vers re­fused to take up du­ty say­ing the bus­es un­der their charge were de­fec­tive.

The dri­vers joined their col­leagues from the San Fer­nan­do branch who have vowed not to work un­less the Min­istry of Works put prop­er sys­tems in place to en­sure bus­es are road­wor­thy.

Shop stew­ard for the Trans­port and In­dus­tri­al Work­ers Trade Union (TI­WU) Point Fortin Branch, Kervyn Ed­wards, said over the past month the En­gi­neer­ing De­part­ment of the PTSC in Point Fortin has been at a stand­still be­cause there is no me­chan­ic as­signed to work from 4.30 am to 1 pm. He said the first bus left Point Fortin at 3.30 am and it was im­por­tant to have a me­chan­ic on hand to in­spect the bus­es be­fore de­par­ture. He said there was on­ly a trainee avail­able who was not qual­i­fied to fix or in­spect the bus­es.

“That trainee comes for 7 am and we have a charge­hand who comes for 1 pm. This is not ide­al for us be­cause it means our en­gi­neer­ing sec­tion is non-func­tion­al,” Ed­wards said.

He ex­plained that the new tick­et fines and de­mer­it sys­tem were a cause of stress to many bus dri­vers who were un­will­ing to go out to work know­ing the bus­es were not road­wor­thy.

Ac­cord­ing to Ed­wards, on­ly three dri­vers re­port­ed for work by 7 am to op­er­ate a fleet of 27 bus­es. By 7 am, af­ter mak­ing their first trip, all three de­clared their bus­es de­fec­tive and stopped work.

“Our 5 am, 6 am and 8 am trips to Ica­cos nev­er pulled off. We can­not dri­ve bus­es which are not in­spect­ed and which are not road­wor­thy. We are not putting our lives and our pas­sen­gers lives in dan­ger,” he said.

Scores of peo­ple who wait­ed for the bus to go to Point Fortin to do busi­ness were left strand­ed yes­ter­day.

One of them, Ica­cos res­i­dent Sha­hee­da Ma­haraj said: “Nor­mal­ly pen­sion­ers go to Point Fortin to make their mar­ket and to change their pen­sion cheques. Peo­ple were so dis­ap­point­ed. This is not the first time the bus did not come.”

She said the res­i­dents sym­pa­thised with the dri­vers say­ing it was ridicu­lous that they were li­able to pay hefty fines when it was PTSC’s fault the bus­es were de­fec­tive.

“They need to get their act to­geth­er. It is ridicu­lous. Why do they suf­fer poor peo­ple in this coun­try,” Ma­haraj said.

Coun­cil­lor for Ce­dros Shankar Teelucks­ingh said the bus dri­vers’ con­cerns were le­git­i­mate and jus­ti­fied and it was im­por­tant for the Gov­ern­ment to en­sure the safe­ty of all pas­sen­gers by pro­vid­ing road­wor­thy bus­es.

“To­day there was no bus in Bam­boo, Chatham, Ica­cos and Ce­dros. The Works Min­is­ter should re­sign be­cause he has proven to be in­ca­pable of run­ning the trans­port sys­tem both on land and at sea,” he said.

Teelucks­ingh said bus trans­port was the on­ly mode used by the poor pen­sion­ers on the penin­su­la.

“Peo­ple use the bus to go to the whole­sale mar­ket to buy their lit­tle gro­ceries and to buy med­i­cine. It is not ac­cept­able that peo­ple have to suf­fer for pub­lic trans­porta­tion this way,” he said.

Con­tact­ed for com­ment, Works Min­is­ter Ro­han Sinanan said all bus­es were giv­en a thor­ough in­spec­tion be­fore be­ing is­sued with in­spec­tion cer­tifi­cates. He said if bus dri­vers be­lieved the cer­tifi­cates were is­sued with­out in­spec­tion, they should speak to the Trans­port Com­mis­sion­er.


Related articles

Sponsored

Weather

PORT OF SPAIN WEATHER

Sponsored