Belize Bus Association Gets a Solution; Small Compromise Made

The Belize Bus Association was able to come to an agreement with the Ministry of Transport about foreign owned buses making stops in Belize.  On Tuesday, the association met with Minister of Transport Edmond Castro, as well as the Attorney General Michael Peyrefitte, and other government officials.  That meeting was to discuss a way forward with the association’s members because they say that for months they were unable to come to an agreement to address the bus problem. The association threatened a national shutdown of the public transport system if things weren’t resolved.  Well, much to the liking of the B.B.A., they came to an agreement that the foreign buses would no longer be picking up passengers in different locations. This morning, officials from the B.B.A. and the Belize Taxi Federation appeared on Open Your Eyes to talk about the outcome of Tuesday’s meeting. Ewart Metzgen says that they had to make a small compromise.

Ewart Metzgen

Ewart Metzgen, Secretary, Belize Bus Association

“When the Attorney General sat with us yesterday, they had a letter that we had sent to them. He read that letter and then picked up the S.I.  Basically, some of what were asking was already in that S.I., just that there was no enforcement. So, he looked at us and asked, ‘What is it that you all want?’ So, we looked at the AG and categorically said, ‘AG, with all due respect, we want that gone.’  We asked how fast you think this can be done.  We want the S.I gone so that that these buses from Guatemala don’t come in and make stops. But we still made one compromise with them. As AG said, it would have been unfair. So, during the day those buses will not come in during the day when the local bus operators are running. But they asked us if we would agree if we have one bus, like how we have one ADO bust at night to go into Mexico. If we would work with them for one of those Guatemalan buses come in at night and leave the same time that the ADO buses go to Mexico and they would go to Guatemala.  So, we had to compromise because in negotiating we can’t just want what we want and say not give something back.”