SHAR­LENE RAM­PER­SAD

Act­ing leader of Gov­ern­ment busi­ness in the Sen­ate, Sen­a­tor Paula Gopee-Scoon, says all out­stand­ing pay­ments due to As­so­ci­a­tion of Maxi Taxi School Trans­port Con­ces­sion­aires (AMT­STC) will be paid soon.

Gopee-Scoon's state­ments came on Wednes­day morn­ing, af­ter Op­po­si­tion Sen­a­tor Wade Mark ques­tioned what steps were be­ing tak­en to re­solve the im­passe be­tween the AMT­STC and the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion over the non-pay­ment of salaries.

On Mon­day, AMT­STC pres­i­dent, Rod­ney Ram­lo­gan told Guardian Me­dia the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion had not been keep­ing its promis­es to pay maxi taxi dri­vers since 2015. Ram­lo­gan said many of the dri­vers had found oth­er streams of in­come as they were un­able to wait for pay­ments.

On Wednes­day, Gopee-Scoon said the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion has re­mit­ted $1.2Mil­lion to the Pub­lic Ser­vice Trans­port Cor­po­ra­tion (PTSC) to pay the dri­vers. Gopee-Scoon said an­oth­er $184,000 was al­so be­ing processed for pay­ment.

She said these al­lo­ca­tions would cov­er all out­stand­ing pay­ments owed to the dri­vers.

Gopee-Scoon stat­ed the PTSC was al­so seek­ing dri­vers to serve all school routes, which the Cor­po­ra­tion hopes will hap­pen by the end of next week.