WITH rapid development expected in Guyana very soon, the country stands to lose in its transportation sector if greater enforcement is not enacted against mini-bus operatives who refuse to accept lawfulness and uniformity.

“It cannot be business as usual. We’ve realised that otherwise to first-oil and these things that will bring a lot of first-world standards to us, we of ourselves need to put ourselves in order,” President of the United Minibus Union (UMU), Eon Andrews, said recently on the Guyana Chronicle’s, Vantage Point.

Andrews pointed out that the ABC countries (America, Britain and Canada) over the years have urged their citizens travelling to Guyana to refrain from using the country’s most basic public transport system for a variety of reasons; this, he emphasised, can only be reversed through improvement.

With developments already in the pipeline for the Linden to Lethem road, the UMU President warned that if local operatives do not ‘look sharp,’ they can lose their trade to outside parties.

“I have this fear —and it has been expressed in many corners — that with the development of certain sectors in the country…we are going to fix that road from Lethem to Linden which means that those little buses that run that route will be affected and they may well decide that they are going to come and dump themselves into the system in town,” Andrews said.

Guyana’s UMU recently received a visit from the International Transport Workers Federation (ITF), which has also advised that the only way Guyana’s transport system can survive the coming boom is if it shapes up, and shapes up fast.

Being organised, uniformed and the setting up of various branches of the union would help to ensure that operatives adhere to the restrictions required before plying routes, such as the Linden to Lethem route, set to be in demand.

Andrews also pointed out that the coming of greater development to Guyana will also raise the bar in the local standards expected, which can negatively affect mini-bus operatives who continue to rebel against positive change.

“There’ve been a lot of complaints going in to the Ministry of Business Consumers Affairs Department about the conduct of these operatives and we cannot deny that it is so. Mini-buses have and still have, to a point, a very bad reputation,” he said.

“There are very good persons there, there are decent persons there, there are valedictorians there, but that’s the job they choose to make money, so there are persons who conform to that culture of greed and lawlessness…because they don’t want to feel odd,” he added.

Andrews told the Guyana Chronicle that there is much work to be done and it cannot be accomplished by just one agency.

Over the years, since being elected president of the union, he has been working to see mini-bus operatives organised through uniforms and adherence to the existing Mini-bus Code of Conduct.

The UMU continues to work along with other stakeholders such as the Guyana Police Force (GPF) for the training of mini-bus operators; the Guyana Road Safety Council and the Ministry of Public Infrastructure.

Andrews said that operators have to want to be a part of the change; he said too that the authorities must make greater efforts at enforcing the laws. “I must say that the police have been working a lot to get this thing going, but it is more about changing a culture. The laws are there, but there is this culture of greed and indiscipline,” Andrews explained.

He added: “The Code of Conduct is working to a point where the police are doing what they have to do; the ministry is working; there are persons within the United Minibus Union that are working; the Road Safety Council is trying to come up with new things, but the enforcement in most cases rests with the police.”

He is happy that more citizens are reporting conduct-related incidents as advised by the union.

However, he revealed that many mini-bus users are still condoning and even encouraging the lawlessness of mini-bus operators, especially when it comes to matters of speed, inappropriate music and overcrowding.

He said that even before laws are eventually amended to demand greater compliance from mini-bus operators, these operators should take this period to set themselves in order to avoid stringent penalties.

The UMU President is also calling on the Ministry of Business to increase its coming budget to cater for more sensitisation programmes on the importance of lawful mini-bus operations, to operators and citizens alike.