Not so Mr Minister, say concessionaires

President of the Association of Maxi Taxi School Transport Concessionaires (AMTSTC) Rodney Ramlogan said claims by the Education Ministry that maxi taxis which transport school children were being grossly overcharged was untrue.

The service is supplied by the Public Transport Service Corporation (PTSC) and Ramlogan said the figures quoted by the ministry was for a one-way trip.

“We are taking children back and forth,” Ramlogan said, adding that only PTSC can clarify the situation.

“We are contracted under the PTSC and they have monitors on the road that monitors the maxis. The school and PTSC are responsible for putting the children on the maxi.”

The ministry said it had been paying almost three times what it should be paying. The service is available at 67 primary schools and 90 secondary schools across the country.

In its statement, the ministry said it has been paying for 34,000 seats per month, even though fewer than 12,000 pupils use the service monthly.

It added that the ministry was paying for in excess of 20,000 unoccupied seats.

Ramlogan was adamant that the concessionaires were not ripping off the state.

“We submit our claims to PTSC and then they (PTSC) submit the claims to the Ministry of Education,” Ramlogan said.

He is calling on Education Minister Anthony Garcia to launch an investigation into the issue.

Ramlogan explained that one return trip was computed as two single trips.

“Therefore, even using the figure of 12,000 school children, the number of trips per day would amount to 24, 000 seats...We are in the business of supplying a maxi taxi with seats. ”

“We are now questioning the basis by which the figure of 12, 000 children was arrived at, especially as the number of seats which we are contracted to provide on a school day is approximately 35, 000.

“This figure was arrived at based on information which the PTSC obtained from the various schools and which are verified for transport by school monitors and the administrative staff of the PTSC,” he said.

He said the concessionaires have been liaising with schools where there might be empty seats on maxi taxis to facilitate children who require transport.

“This allegation or perception which is being created is not dissimilar to a statement made by the Minister of Education prior to the re-opening of schools for the 2017-2018 academic year that there were ‘ghost concessionaires/maxi taxis’ in the school system. That allegation created serious concerns in the minds of the public and was most distressing to our members. To date no ‘ghost concessionaires/maxi taxis’ has been identified,” he said.