B.B.A. Explains Its Floralia Issues

Thomas Shaw

According to Shaw, while the B.B.A. initially started out with an amicable relationship with the Minister of Transport and the Department of Transport, things went south when Floralia Limited was brought into the fray.

Thomas Shaw, President, Belize Bus Association

“Since we got in, everything was good.  For the first year we had the minister, they dialogued with us.  We had a very, very good relationship until Floralia came into this picture.  And with that said, I sit on the board and there are numerous things that take place at the Transport Board that I’m aggrieved by and this is the reason why I am personally having this press conference.  I actually, we met with our members and all our members are onboard.  So my thing is right now is to let the public know what is taking place within the Transport Board.  When Mr. Ritchie’s runs were taken away, I sat there, the minister was in that meeting and they came up and they said that they were going to send him a letter, but I dialogued and said, give Mr. Ritchie a chance for him to redeem himself.  When Mr. Ritchie did get that letter, the letter that he received was for him to cease and desist operations on the thirteenth of February which we didn’t agree to.  Lo and behold, I have documents here and I didn’t print this, this is the government’s gazette.  We held a meeting on the twelfth, this gazette is showing where this man applied on the tenth and we held meeting on the twelfth and I am a member of the Transport Board and I wasn’t privy to this.  It’s the first I am actually seeing it when I went and I bought this gazette.  So the minister is saying that he wants to fix the system, but there is no way that you can fix the system if you are a part of the problem.”