Yesterday you saw the Belize City Traffic Department issuing tickets to a National Transportation Bus that was parked in front of the Novelo's Bus Terminal. As we had suspected this was a case of old players making their way back into the industry. And we were right. We spoke to David Novelo this morning and he confirmed that the Novelo family is back in the bus business. He says that they have set up a company called Bel Bus. Through this company, they have brought 30 buses into the country from the U.S. on a lease arrangement. In turn Bel Bus sub-leases the buses to three other companies: Intransit, Ladyville and National. These are run something like a cooperative with Bel Bus incurring the capital expenses of services and road worthiness of the buses. In turn the buses are leased out to individual drivers who are responsible for salaries and fuel for the runs in exchange for a fee which is paid to Bel Bus.
It's a different approach and one that David Novelo says is a new formula for doing bus runs. Thing is some of the buses are operating on an old agreement signed years ago with the then Minister of transport Maxuel Samuels and not with road service permits. While that's the story on how the Novelo family continues to make inroads into the transportation industry, today the National Transportation Buses continued to operate out of the taxi stand without official resistance.
