RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

While com­muters scram­bled for trans­porta­tion dur­ing the three-day maxi taxi protest, busi­ness­es across south Trinidad ex­pe­ri­enced lit­tle to no dis­rup­tion, with on­ly a few work­ers ar­riv­ing late, ac­cord­ing to rep­re­sen­ta­tives of the re­gion’s busi­ness cham­bers.

Speak­ing with Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day, pres­i­dent of the Greater San Fer­nan­do Cham­ber of In­dus­try and Com­merce Ki­ran Singh said re­ports re­ceived by the cham­ber in­di­cat­ed that while some em­ploy­ees ar­rived late for work, com­mer­cial ac­tiv­i­ty con­tin­ued large­ly un­in­ter­rupt­ed.

Singh praised mea­sures im­ple­ment­ed to as­sist com­muters dur­ing the dis­rup­tion, in­clud­ing trans­porta­tion sup­port pro­vid­ed by the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice and ex­pand­ed ser­vices by the Pub­lic Trans­port Ser­vice Cor­po­ra­tion (PTSC).

“We must say a spe­cial note of grat­i­tude to the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice for lend­ing the use of their bus­es to take per­sons to their places of res­i­dence af­ter work when there was a se­vere lack of trans­port for per­sons out­side of the San Fer­nan­do area,” he said.

He added that taxis re­mained read­i­ly avail­able and that au­thor­i­ties worked to en­sure com­muters were able to reach their des­ti­na­tions.

Mean­while, Fyz­abad Cham­ber of Com­merce pres­i­dent Clint Ar­joon al­so re­port­ed no sig­nif­i­cant im­pact on busi­ness­es in South Trinidad, say­ing that while the protest may have af­fect­ed parts of north Trinidad, op­er­a­tions in the south con­tin­ued as nor­mal.

“In South, there was ab­solute­ly no im­pact,” Ar­joon said. “Busi­ness­es op­er­at­ed as nor­mal, and every­one from our re­gion had a reg­u­lar day of sales and work.”

How­ev­er, PRO of the Fyz­abad Cham­ber of Com­merce, Kavi­ta Dabiedeen, said peo­ple from Fyz­abad who work in Port-of-Spain were im­pact­ed.

“The dis­rup­tion high­light­ed wider na­tion­al chal­lenges linked to de­pen­dence on pub­lic trans­port,” she ex­plained.

She said the Fyz­abad Cham­ber of Com­merce sup­ports di­a­logue and not dis­rup­tion.

“We un­der­stand the op­er­a­tional chal­lenges faced by maxi taxi op­er­a­tors. How­ev­er, the shut­down of pub­lic trans­port places an un­fair bur­den on small busi­ness­es, work­ers, stu­dents and oth­er gen­er­al com­muters who de­pend on the ser­vice dai­ly. Be­cause when trans­port stops, com­merce and ser­vice slow down,” she added.

Dabiedeen al­so said that both the Gov­ern­ment and trans­port op­er­a­tors should re­turn to ne­go­ti­a­tions to avoid sim­i­lar dis­rup­tions.

She added that the Cham­ber re­mains avail­able to sup­port mem­bers through fu­ture dis­rup­tions and broad­er trans­port-re­lat­ed chal­lenges.