By Michron Robinson on Friday, 1 October, 2021 at 12:13 PM

In addition to carrying reduced ridership, PSV operators are now facing another battle with pirate vehicles on their routes.

Communications, Information and Marketing Officer with the Alliance Owners of Public Transport (AOPT) Mark Haynes made a plea while speaking to The Wallpaper exclusively for the Transport Authority to do something about the worrying trend.

What is worse, he explained, was that with COVID-19 there was no way to tell if the pirates were sanitising their vehicles or urging customers to wear their masks.

He complained that they were taking away business from the legal PSV operators.

“We have seen the escalation of these pirates on all the routes taking their share of commuters. We are at 75 per cent capacity according to the COVID-19 stipulations so what happens is that when these guys come in and collect passengers… they are taking away the business from the regular PSV sector which is not fair to them.”

Haynes called for the Transport Authority to seriously investigate the matter immediately.

“They need to institute a monitoring unit to do some sort of tracking on these guys. I would suggest giving them a warning if caught and if they repeat that infraction they should be prosecuted but they should not be coming on to the normal PSV routes to lure the customers because they are taking away the business of legal drivers.”

He called it “unfair, absurd and ludicrous” and told The Wallpaper though his organisation complained before, their pleas seemed to have fallen on deaf ears.

“If something happens, God forbid, and they get into an accident their commuters would not be covered. We cannot stay idly by and not say something. We cannot have a situation where the guys are paying their taxes and they come to take away their business. Something needs to be done urgently.”

Chairman of the AOPT Roy Raphael said that he too was concerned about the illegal operators.

“They continue to break the law and don’t go into the terminal as the COVID-19 directions recommend. Because we are carrying 75 per cent, they are taking the other 25 per cent. They said some of them don’t have hand sanitisers on board and that is a concern for us.”

He said that they will continue to monitor the situation very closely while noting the risk to passengers catching those vehicles.

“It’s a very dangerous move. They are all about making money and the passengers may not know that they are breaking the law.”