KINDLY publish this letter as a formal complaint of some of the plights we are being meted out with, concerning transportation to and from home to office on regular working days. Almost all the buses in Coldingen/Non-Pareil/Enterprise take and demand $200 per person when the regular fare is $120. We have no choice but to comply and pay $200 for each trip.

I am a single parent employed with the Government of Guyana. I prefer to withhold my name as I will be a target. I am travelling on a daily basis, five days per week, to work in Georgetown. My salary is under $50,000 per month. I am very much ashamed and embarrassed with the transportation system in this area Enterpise/Non-Pareil/Coldingen and other parts of East Coast and the country as a whole. It is most frustrating.
From Non-Pareil/ Enterprise/Coldingen and the outlying areas, the bus fare officially is $120 per person to Georgetown. Daily it is $240 return bus fare. But almost all the buses in Coldingen/Non-Pareil/Enterprise collect $200 from each passenger.
Officially working hours is 8:00 a.m to 12:00 noon and 1:00 p.m to 4:30 p.m. So many of vehicles in Guyana, yet still we the workers are left for hours on the roadways. We are left stranded at the East Coast bus parks, Camp Street and North Road, etc. Why? In the morning, bus conductors as well as drivers tell us, the passengers, point blank “we going short. We nah going town.” Meaning they are going up to BV and from BV they then head to Georgetown. They would then sort out passengers comprising school children and short drops which is between $60 and $100. We are left to suffer on the road from as early as 6:30 a.m in the mornings, sometimes until 09:30 a.m. for transportation.
In the afternoons they tell us point blank if you are paying $200 jump in the bus.
Many days we are left to suffer in this way and this causes lateness to work and workers are left answerable to the mercy of supervisors, coupled with the long traffic jam on the East Coast Highway in the vicinity of Apex School at Montrose daily, in the morning hours and the continuation of other schools on Carifesta Avenue and other schools leading to Camp Street etc, which also includes stop lights before reaching North Road and which we can cope with).
The problems could have been solved if bus conductors and drivers fetch their own area people rather than coming out of the Enterprise/Nonpareil/Coldingen areas and going all the way to collect people on the main public road and other areas. It is very difficult when the buses don’t pick you up.
You have to take short drops all the way until you reach Coldingen turn, then take a taxi from there to go into the area since it’s a haven for robberies. At the end of the day, you spend almost a $1,000 on transportation trying to reach home before it’s too dark. Not many people can afford this. When it is early you have to walk in that long road to Enterprise and its environment. It is a disgusting, harassing and frustrating problem.
We are calling on the relevant authorities to please help to adjust the situation with the bus fares – (commuters must not pay more than the required fares). Another suggestion is that maybe the government can introduce public buses at parks for various areas. The people waiting on transportation on the road are suffering to an extent of being disciplined and given letters of late coming etc.
Working mothers, pregnant mothers, children and aged workers also suffer. In many cases people cannot afford to pay $200 as their wages are inadequate, but we have no choice but pay and hold onto our jobs.
Sir, the afternoon is no better.  A bus will stop but when you reach the destination the conductors say $200 is the fare. The bus conductors shout at you saying “short, short, Better Hope”. They make several trips to Better Hope and then do all the short drops until they reach Coldingen/Nonpareil/Enterprise.