JATOO under fire from Transport Authority

BY INGRID BROWN Observer senior reporter browni@jamaicaobserver.com

Monday, January 04, 2010

THE vocal Jamaica Association of Transport Owners and Operators (JATOO) has come under fire from the state-run Transport Authority for being a non-registered entity.

The Transport Authority (TA) is also charging that some of the umbrella group's members are illegal operators.

According to an official document obtained by the Observer, the Transport Authority in February launched a recognition programme for all existing taxi associations, and gave the nod to 53 individual taxi associations nationally, along with three umbrella organisations -- National Council of Taxi Associations (NCOTA), the National Association of Taxi Operators (NATO) and the Route Taxi Association of Jamaica (RTAJ).

The authority said it took a decision then not to accept any new associations in a bid to streamline route taxi associations.

"Based on the authority's review of the listing of JATOO's associate associations, four of these associations are not currently registered with the authority, while three other associations are already members of existing NGOs," the TA said.

But yesterday, JATOO's president Louis Barton challenged the claims, noting that although his association was formed in April, after the end of the registration process, its members were part of other recognised associations.

Barton told the Observer that JATOO currently represented 13 associations with 5,000 members, and was not representing illegal operators, but instead working to get them to formalise their status.

"It is not that we are representing illegal operators but we are speaking to them on a permanent basis to bring them in," he said.

Barton said JATOO opposed the limiting of the number of associations that could represent operators, and no one had the right to tell operators which association they could join.

"This is one of the grounds I will be contesting this decision on," he declared.

He also questioned the timing of the TA's claims, suggesting that it was linked to JATOO's ultimatum to transport minister Mike Henry to respond to operators' request for a bus and taxi fare increase.

JATOO had also called for the resignation of the Jamaica Urban Transit Company (JUTC) communications manager, Reginald Allen, for saying that JUTC's failure to find a replacement to the National Transport Corporative Society was due to indiscipline among applicants.

Messages left for the TA management were not returned up to Observer press time.