by Jared Liddell

THE United Mini-bus Union (UMU) is making significant strides in changing the culture of minibus operations in Guyana. On October 15, 2019, the union saw over 45 minibus operators being uniformed in the union’s newly designed jerseys.

President of the UMU, Eon Andrews, said that this is the first stride of many that the union intends to take to ensure that public transportation in Guyana is brought up to world standard. He explained that according to Guyana’s trajectory, the country can expect to be propelled in a new order of operations and thus the public transport sector must be able to keep up.

“So basically when a country starts to expand, especially with the discovery of oil, you’ll find all kinds of persons would start coming to our country, and they could very well be persons who would want to bring fleets of buses; so what we are doing here is that they must put themselves in order and get themselves to that standard, so that the government would be able to see that our people are trying.

But it will not work unless they get themselves in order, unless they become good business persons, because it’s a business you’re doing now, and if you want to promote your business, you must have a good appearance, you must be able to speak to people, you must respect the elderly, you must respect the differently abled, you must respect children, and you must understand that there are certain criteria that you have to conform to when you’re providing public transportation,” said Andrews.

He further went on to state that the jerseys are just one part of a larger plan the union has for mini-bus operations; he stated that the minibus operators have, through the collaboration of the Ministry of Business and the mini-bus operators, attended training exercises in an effort to ensure that they had practical knowledge in hospitality and operations, giving them the best possible chance to serve the country and its citizens.

“A lot of these guys would have been trained at the Zarah Centre between August, September, at least 200 and something drivers and operators who should be graduating shortly, they will be receiving certification and that is in keeping with the code of conduct, which includes wearing uniforms, being in an organisation and carrying out certain

hospitality requirements [and] conforming to the road vehicle and traffic ordinance; all these things they went through in the training. And there may be legislation whereby it would be a requirement before you purchase your minibus licence, whether persons have completed the training, you would have to get this defensive driving, hospitality training, first aid, all these kinds of things, because it’s a requirement all over the world,” Andrews explained.

Bus driver and Chairman of Route 48 bus park, Elvis Joseph, said that he believes the work done by the union is good; it would prove to be beneficial to not only the passengers, because they would get a better experience, but also to the bus operators, because it would make their job somewhat less stressful. He is encouraging all of the operators to unite and not try to fight what the union intends to do.

He said that in addition to the training that the operators have already received, the union intends this to not only be a one-off training, but a continuous one where they would be able to receive continued training and the union aims to have sessions once a month to facilitate this.

He further explained the idea the union has for how touts will operate on the park: “We are trying to give the touts a new role; we want them to be our operators, so we would utilise them as persons who will keep the order; they would provide the passengers with guidance on which bus they would need to catch; they would make sure all of the buses are in order as it relates to picking up passengers and so on. We want to shift the role they play and give them a more stable role to help maintain order.”

Chairman of the Route 45 bus park, Seon Small, said that he is aware of the benefits of what the union is aiming to do and calls for solidarity. He said that while he is calling the drivers and operators of these vehicles to come together, there also needs to be a collaborative effort by the general public to ensure that everything that comes out of the varying training sessions would be implemented.

He further explained that sometimes the requests of persons who use public transportation can cause some level of disorganisation as the drivers would try to meet their customers’ needs.

“….the commuters have a large role to play in it, because they got a way where they leave their homes or wherever they coming from, already late and then when they get here they ready to hustle the drivers to get them to their destination on time, even though they already late cause they left late.

“So their behaviour patterns largely add to the level of disorganisation that occurs on this park. I mean at times people talk about “hot plating,” and this is one of the reasons why that actually came about, because persons would rush to buses that would be quicker to full and move off than to wait for them to full. So the commuters have a part to play in ensuring that this transition is smooth,” said Small.