National Bus Company Rollout Gains Momentum With Worker Assurances

The government’s National Bus Company initiative continues to gather momentum, with assurances that efforts are being made to ensure a smooth transition for workers in the public transportation sector.  Contributing to The Morning Show today was the Minister of Transportation, Dr. Louis Zabaneh, who provided an update on the ongoing rollout of the national project. He emphasized that worker welfare remains a central priority as the administration moves forward with the reform.

Dr. Louis Zabaneh, Minister of Transport: “The government cannot subsidize the national boss company. That’s not the intention. While the government will own, along with the institutional investor, 60 percent of the company, the company is not to be a burden on the government. So the government is not to be paying for employees of the National Bus Company. It’s a private company. Just like how the government does not pay the employees a BEL or BWSL those companies pay their own employees from the earnings that they make. In a similar way the National Bus Company is to stand on its own and not just that but with the synergies with the operators who have joined, be able to be sustainable and to have a dividend flow that will go to the operators and to the government. So for the first time now government with this synergy will be able to have dividends paid back to them to the government. So it’s an investment that the government is making. Now the terminals have workers and so we have had to discuss with them. We met with the commissioner of labor and the deputy commissioner and they advised us. They also advised us and I will be hoping on this to meet quickly with the leadership of the union. And so I will admit publicly that probably we didn’t move as swiftly as we should have, because they said that of all those people who are working across the country a few of them are members of the union. A small minority are members of the union. They advised that we bring in all those workers into one place along with the representative of the union and we explain to them that we are ensuring that their rights would be preserved in the transition.”

Dr. Zabaneh explained that consultations and planning have been ongoing behind the scenes to minimize disruption to commuters and employees alike.  Turning to how the new system will function, the minister outlined that under the National Bus Company structure, the entity will assume responsibility for payroll and operations, marking a significant shift from the current privately managed model. He also detailed that employees will undergo a probationary period as part of the transition.

Dr. Louis Zabaneh, Minister of Transport: “So all these workers would have to move off the payroll of government and onto the payroll of the National Bus Company. And so we have a transition plan over the next four months for them so that all of these things can be done properly. Those persons with the transition become employed by the National Bus Company. And in this transition period, there would be a time of probationary period for them to meet the standards of the National Bus Company. There would be training, et cetera. And so now the national bus company takes on the payroll for those people. So I wanted to clarify that.”

Love News understands that as part of the first phase of the national rollout, James Bus Line will come under the management of the National Bus Company effective March 1.

Government officials say the phased implementation is intended to modernize Belize’s public transportation network while maintaining stability for both workers and commuters as the transition unfolds.