Just a few decades ago, there were five major bus owners in Belize: Gilharry in the north, Batty in the East, Novelo in the west, Zabaneh in the mid-south, and James (Williams) in the south. In 1998 a government came along with the grand idea to make a single bus owner rule the highways, but that didn’t work out. In 2008 a government came along and split the industry among many operators. Some have blamed the 2008 decision for the poor state of the present public transportation fleet, but all recognize that the Covid-19 pandemic and the Russia/Ukraine War have severely hurt our bus owners, as they have done to other businesses in Belize and across the world.
Enter 2020, and a new government with a Blu Plan in hand began making strong moves to modernize, upgrade public transportation on the highways. The Minister of Transport, Hon. Rodwell Ferguson, has issued a number of ultimatums to bus operators whose fleets are run-down, to improve the quality of their buses or lose their franchise. Across the country, regular commuters applauded the decision to get better buses on the highways, with an eye on the impact it would have on the fare.
Transportation is as huge as any other factor in the cost of production of most goods and services in Belize. Why? Because Belize doesn’t make vehicles, the materials that make vehicles, vehicle parts, lubricants and tires, or fuel.
The price of fuel is what vehicle owners complain about the most, largely because almost daily, not less frequently than every week, they have to dock up at the pump station to refuel. But vehicle owners have other major costs to bear. Depreciation; tires; licensing, taxes, and registration; insurance; and maintenance all factor into using a vehicle in Belize a very expensive enterprise.
How expensive is it to run a vehicle in Belize? Last week, Minister of Agriculture, Hon. Jose Mai explained about the troubles that the banana industry is facing, mainly because of the high cost of fertilizers and the spread of Sigatoka disease. But bananas for the local market are still free, when picked up at the banana farms. In urban centers, bananas were 8 for a dollar a couple years ago, then they went to 7 for a dollar, and today it’s 5 for a dollar in some parts. What’s behind the cost increase? A sometimes irreverent famous former American president might have explained it this way: “It’s the cost of transportation, stupid!”
It will take major investments to upgrade the public transportation fleet, but it has to be done. Daily our buses transport thousands of Belizeans, the majority of them our most important human resource: our students and workers. They need to reach their workplace/school on time, get home in reasonable time, and travel in reasonable comfort, all at a cost they can afford.
The introduction, entrance of Floralia, a new bus owner with luxury buses that reportedly cost over $300,000 each, led many to wonder if that was the government’s new standard. Bus owners, many of whom have been in the industry more than a decade, were naturally leery when the new bus line got a share of the transportation pie, and the temperature has risen since Ritchie’s run to Placencia was handed on a platter to the new operator.
This new bus line that has caused increased pressure on bus owners who are scrambling to upgrade their fleet, it would be naïve to not suspect that some red/blue politics, some good old “our turn” is playing out here. It would be naïve to believe that the owners of the new bus line didn’t know the GoB would carve out a path for them before they invested hundreds of thousands of dollars to acquire top-of-the-line buses. Belizeans should be forgiven if they suspect that close affiliates/sponsors of the present government have shares in the new line. Our political leaders are to be blamed. More than once in the past two decades, Belizeans have taken to the streets en masse to protest rampant corruption, rank nepotism, and non-transparent contracts like the one for the Boledo whose holder is registered offshore.
The majority of Belizeans appear to be supporting the brave minister in his objective to improve the quality of buses, and if we went by the noise in the marketplace, most don’t mind the extra cost that comes with luxury either. But in this instance, the loud ayes shouldn’t have it. It is necessary to look at the credentials of everyone who weighs in on the issue: the amount of hours they spend on public transportation. The priority must go to workers who commute regularly, and the parents of students who go to school outside of their district.
While established bus owners have been trying to measure up, it was revealed last week that the owner of the new bus line had received considerable tax breaks. The Minister of Transport has since said that all bus owners who meet the “criteria” should qualify for the tidy reduction in duties. The Department of Transport in a recent press release announced that bus owners could acquire routes for up to ten years in a new tier system they are setting up, something bus owners have been clamoring for, for years. No mention of air conditioning and bucket seats was made in the release, but commuters were promised an “enhanced experience” in newer models that would be replacing the old buses, which were headed for the scrap heap.
There’s no easy path for bus owners in an economy that is struggling. On Wednesday morning, the threat was in the air that they would shut down public transportation if the Ministry of Transport didn’t yield to some demands they were making, but apparently after a meeting with Hon. Ferguson they were sufficiently satisfied, enough to keep their buses on the road. For the GoB and the bus owners, it’s an uneasy truce, and commuters are happy too that there’ll be no interruption of services.
There is some happiness all around, but for regular commuters the cost of fares remains a sticking point. Not only must GoB navigate and innovate to ensure that the better product doesn’t come at greater cost to regular commuters, but it must also find ways to reduce the present cost of fares. No study has been done to find out what percentage of the salaries of regular commuters goes to paying bus fares, but anecdotal evidence is that many of them are under heavy strain, and higher fares could cause a number of them to give up their jobs. The negative impact of high bus fares isn’t felt only by regular commuters. The extra dollar or two regular commuters pay to travel on a bus is the cash they used to purchase fast food and fresh juices from street side vendors.
Safety and reliability are paramount, and at least equally important is cost. The GoB must put the same energy and determination it is putting into modernizing the national fleet, into finding ways to keep bus fares down.