The Tribune

By Fay Simmons

Tribune Business Reporter

jsimmons@tribunemedia.net

A Cabinet minister yesterday said the 25-cent bus fare increase will be rolled out in the 2024 first quarter following a series of Town Hall meetings to inform and educate the public on the move

JoBeth Coleby-Davis, minister of energy and transport, reiterated that Bahamians must be consulted on the public transportation “transformation” to ensure the service provided by jitney drivers meets their expectations.

She said: “There’s a few things happening now. We’re organising to have a public Town Hall. Like I stated before, that is the condition for us to increase the fares.

“A public Town Hall would be for us to engage with the public to talk them through the process of transformation and other things that we’ll have to roll out in the industry, and to make sure that the service to the public is also satisfactory and it’s not just an increase that comes on the backs of the Bahamian public without providing them the service they’re asking for.”

Mrs Coleby-Davis added that the Town Hall meetings will be held early next month, likely the first two weeks of December, while the necessary legislative updates to facilitate the bus fare increase will also be made.

She said: “We’re trying to have that public Town Hall within the first two weeks of December so that we don’t leave this open question remaining over when it’s going to happen, but it is our intent to have that increase by 25 cents. But we’d have to have that public discussion and Town Hall as requested by cabinet.

“We’re hoping to roll it out in the first quarter of next year. It’s a combination of things that’s happening. On top of that, we also have to make sure that we update and gazette the legislation that includes the increase, and so we’ll speak to law reform to make sure it’s also updated and move forward with the matter as much as we can.”

Mrs Coleby-Davis, meanwhile, said discussions have begun on securing a new General Post Office location. She said: “We have been discussing the relocation. I think right now we have to clarify the land and the transaction, and get a conclusion, and then to advance into having some idea of what the timeline of when that will possibly happen, but it’s still a priority and something that we would like to see.

“The Post Office is also trying to go through a transformation to bring in some new revenue streams, providing new services, doing more interconnection with the Family Islands and how we get parcels and couriers out to them. So they’re presenting me proposals of how they can advance the services of the Post Office to make it more modernised and digitised.

“Those conversations, while happening, also means that there’s a great demand for them to be housed in a home that is built to the capacity of the needs that they will now require with some of the new services that they’re seeking to offer.”

During her 2023-2024 Budget debate contribution, Mrs Coleby-Davis said the Post Office has plans to digitise the postal service by allowing electronic payments, online purchases and package tracking. These services are expected to earn the postal service more than $1m annually in the first three years.