Confusion over Fuel Subsidy for Bus Operators Clarified

Another concern that some of the bus operators have was soon cleared up. It appears that the fuel subsidy that was allocated for bus operators have not been shared evenly across the board. But both C.E.O. Marconi Leal Junior and Secretary of the Belize Bus Association, Ewart Metzgen explained that all bus operators do not work equal hours or equal days for that matter. The breakdown of their fuel subsidies, Leal said, is available for them to peruse.

Ewart Metzgen

Ewart Metzgen, Secretary, Belize Bus Association

“Some of them were complaining that they were not getting what they think they should have been getting, noh, so we got some clarifications from the C.E.O. on that and for us to go back to our operators and tell them to – that they – for them to come into the office to see how it is that that subsidy was worked out in their favour.”

Marion Ali

“Wasn’t that something that was already worked out?”

Ewart Metzgen

“Yes ma’am, we initially sat down, myself, Mr. Shaw, the C.E.O. and a couple others sat down and we had that worked out. But after the subsidy started out we had some operators after receiving the first payment, when they worked it out based on what we had agreed on, they were saying that instead of getting payment for like twenty-eight days – those of us that run seven days a week – some of them were between twenty and twenty-four days, so some days were short from what they were supposed to be getting and they wanted us to clarify that and to find out from the folks what was the reason for that. So the C.E.O. told us that if there’s any question from any of them, for them to come in to the office and they will give them a breakdown on a graph to show them how they came up with the figure and what they’re supposed to be getting. In all truth, there are some operators that only run from Mondays to Fridays. There are some that run from Mondays to Saturdays and then we have the larger operators that do the national runs and they run from Sunday to Sunday. So there will be a difference in subsidies for different operators based on the amount of days they run. So I guess it was just getting that sorted out because some operators probably felt that they would have been getting the subsidy for the full twenty-eight days noh, and if you’re not running that amount of days I don’t think you should be getting paid for something you’re not doing noh.”

Marconi Leal Junior, C.E.O., Ministry of Transport

“They know who is the person in Belmopan that they can call and get the details of how that subsidy was calculated. And we’re very transparent in that process. There are a few operators that have reached out to me and they have gotten clarity on how that was calculated and so that’s what I shared today in the meeting that they could reach out and we will definitely give them that clarity.”