Yesterday we told you that the Bus Association had met with the Ministry Of Transport to negotiate the requirements for a bus operator's permit going into 2024.
One of the requirements is that they must upgrade 100% of their fleet no later than December 31st 2023 - which the bus owners say is not possible.
To get a recap of the meeting, we caught up with CEO Adele Catzim today; she outlined the country of the compromise they have agreed to:
Adele Catzim, CEO Ministry of Transport
"In that meeting i think we all agreed that it's important for us to upgrade the bus standards so there was no push back from them on that end and we realized that that is a key aspect of road safety and that we will continue to enforce the new bus standards that are coming about and it must be noted that the bus standards that we are requiring are already embedded within existing legislation so we are not doing anything that is outside the existing legal framework for bus standards what we are doing is just reminding the bus operators that we will work with them to have a timeline for when we will transition for having 100% compliance so just for clarification purposes we decided that at least 50% of the bus fleets, and this is for bus operators that Tun the major Highways. That by the end of December for this year 50% compliance is what we are working towards and then by next year by the end of 2024 we are targeting 100% compliance and we all agreed to that. I think that the major thing that was discussed and fined tuned a little bit was the financing. So the financing aspect for the investment that bus owners are making that is where there needs to be a little bit more dialogue but the ministry has agreed that we will do what we can on our end to support their applications when they go to whatever banking institution they prefer to approach to be able to get the financing to transition. we want to play our part as government in providing whatever support we can and ensuring that we also look at things from multiple perspectives. This also includes the perspective of the bus operators who are the investors what the bank needs to have in hand to be able to make their decisions. As well as what commuters need to be able to enjoy a more safe and efficient public transportation system in the country."
The meeting included Minister Transport, Rodwell Ferguson, along with representatives of the Belize Bus Owners Cooperative (BBOC), Westline, James Bus Company and the Belmopan Busito Association.
