AOPT to Govt: Sit with us on back-to-school travel rules

An official of the organisation representing private transit owners has called on Government to outline targeted and comprehensive guidelines in its next COVID-19 directives for keeping the island’s schoolchildren protected against the coronavirus upon the resumption of school in two weeks’ time.

Director of Complaints at the Alliance Owners of Public Transport (AOPT), Craig Banfield, made this plea on Thursday after his organization received hand sanitizing stations from the Barbados Light and Power Company for Public Service Vehicles operating out of the Cheapside Terminal.

With the new school term being slated to resume in a matter of weeks, he suggested any future COVID-19 directives from Government should have regulations stipulated for the management of children, since the majority of them have to take public transport to and from school.

Banfield said: “We need to be concerned and visible as parents, and as persons [using] public transport, in terms of keeping [children safe] and protecting their interest. We have looked as an organization to see, how children operating on public transport will be able to play safe and as a result, we have come up with a few measures, in terms of the standard, wearing a mask, sanitizing when you are entering and exiting a public service vehicle, [and] monitors we are asking the Prime Minister [Mia Mottley] to look into.”

He also called on officials from the ministries of education, health and transport to sit down with the AOPT soon to outline plans for creating the safest possible environment for children when schools are once again opened.

“There is no room for error at this particular part in time,” the AOPT official said. “The parents are putting their trust in the Government of Barbados, as well as our public service sector, to ensure that their children remain safe while going to school, and also returning from school. We all have a duty to these children, they are minors, so let us all play our part.”

Banfield also said that the legal clinic first proposed by the AOPT a few weeks ago will officially launch in the month of April, with the intention of giving legal advice to PSV operators who happen to find themselves in the law courts.

He said: “We have a team of lawyers on board that will be looking to make sure that the needs of the clients are met, and it is free. These [lawyers] are volunteering their services to make sure that we have a forum whereby we can r assist because the law is sometimes very difficult to understand and people are convinced about it. So we have to make sure we at the legal clinic will be able to come to an easy solution to help them.”
(SB)