Government spokesmen have repeatedly stated their opposition to privatising the Transport Board. In fact, Prime Minister Freundel Stauart is on record as defending the state’s involvement in public transportation, tracing it back to the Board’s establishment in 1955.
“It [the Transport Board Act] was passed because everything was not going all right, and the state had to get involved and control public transport in Barbados,” he said in August 2012 at the height of debate about privatisation in Barbados.
“To this day, no Government of Barbados has stopped private people from getting involved in public transport. But, the Transport Board is controlled by the state and it is controlled by the state because again for us Barbados is not just an economy, it is also a society.
“The Transport Board performs a social service, not rooted in the pursuit of profit-making, but rooted in the humanitarian pursuit of ensuring that people can get from one part of Barbados to another,” he added.
But while the current administration’s opposition to ceding control of the Transport Board to private interests, there seems to be a consensus that the island’s overall public transportation system is in need of improvement.
In addition to Transport Board buses, the system includes privately-owned mini buses and ZRs.
There are also thousands of privately-owned cars and other vehicles Barbadians own.
Over time the number of vehicles on the roads have increased substantially prompting concerns about its impact on national productivity, among other things.
Minister of Transport and Works Michael Lashley is one individual who sees a need for an overhaul of the system, a view shared by most of his predecessors in either the current or previous administration.
“We have to integrate the private transportation with the public transport. It is too costly in terms of the expenses and we are looking at bringing efficiencies to the Transport Board. That is part of the restructuring programme to bring a level of profitability to the Transport Board,” he said earlir this year.
“We are looking at new routes. We are looking at engaging the Transport Board and the Transport Authority to work together as one. We have two committees in place that should be reporting back to.
Once we look at it internally, we will send it up to Cabinet for Cabinet’s approval.”
The Transport Authority is a relatively new entity, established by an act of Parliament in 2007. Its primary function is to “plan, monitor and regulate the public transport system in Barbados”.
This included “to undertake planning for the public transport system, to monitor and regulate the public transport system, to issue, cancel, suspend licenses of drivers and conductors of public service vehicles, to issue, suspend or revoke permits in respect of public service vehicles, to restrict the use of motor omnibuses, minibuses and route taxis to specified routes”.
Other functions were regulating and restricting the number of motor omnibuses minibuses and route taxis on specified routes, and “to supervise the conduct of business in the passenger terminals, to publish current information on public transport services, [and] to establish timetables to be observed by drivers and conductors of motor omnibuses minibuses and route taxis.
Beyond the Transport Authority’s role, there is a view by some, including private sector representatives, that Government needs to reduce is role in public transportation, including divesting the Transport Board to private interests.
This was on the basis that doing so would reduce the state’s heavy financial burden resulting from its longstanding subsidising of the Transport Board, while also increasing the company’s efficiency and service.
But those hesitant to do so, have said that the wholesale privatisation of the statutory body could negatively impact vulnerable groups including pensioners and the poor, who might be at the mercy of private corporations more interested in maximizing profits.
With the sale of the Transport Board off the table, a comprehensive revamp of the entire public transportation system to more formally include private operators is widely seen as the more feasible option.
