Dear Editor,

The donkey, also known as the jackass, is not credited with any famous titles such as fastest, king of anywhere, or best friend of anyone. However, its struggles have brought about the profound statement, “Donkey seh di world nuh level”.

Recently public transport operators were granted a 35 per cent fare increase over two years by the Minister of Science, Energy, Telecommunications and Transport Daryl Vaz. This has been met with mixed feelings — celebrations from the operators and displeasure from commuters.

The operators argue that mounting fuel prices and exorbitant vehicle repair bills due to bad roads qualify their long overdue fair increase, while the commuters, on the other hand, argued that the operators had already informally increased fares. The commuters furthered that some operators apply more than the prescribed increase and have an informal fair structure for nights and when there is an overwhelming number of commuters to vehicles ratio (water more then flour).

The Transport Authority (TA) has subsequently issued warnings to the operators against overcharging. The managing director of the TA Ralston Smith said the authority will be closely monitoring the fare increase and will take a zero-tolerance approach to overcharging. A driver who is found guilty of overcharging passengers, under summary conviction, can be fined up to $100,000 under section 107(3) of the Road Traffic Act (RTA). The TA is urging commuters to report incidence of overcharging to the authorities.

Now, as the pendulum stops swinging and the smoke clears, the jackass jogs one’s memory about the recent government atrocity. Not that one can forget, but just for the sake of repeating: the Government gave themselves an increase amounting to over 200 per cent. The Mount Everest increase given to politicians was announced and defended by Minister of Finance Dr Nigel Clarke and Prime Minister Andrew Holness.

While this angered especially the public sector workers, who where given increases amounting to, in my opinion, drops in the bucket, the silence was deafening. There were no threats of fines or imprisonment, no rollback or committee set up to address the concerns of the masses. The members of parliamentary Opposition People’s National Party (PNP), who were also benefactors of the gargantuan raise, offered no resistance.

Public passenger operators consider the situation “unfair”, as the increases range from a couple hundred dollar to a possible $1,000. This is in no way comparative to the the politicians’ millions in increase, with little to no accountability. The question must then be asked: Should the public passenger operators overcharge commuters? Absolutely not, do they deserve the increase? Yes, they do.

On the other hand, in order to answer this question for our leaders, we have to evaluate their stewardship to determine if their remuneration is justified. The prime minister, however, thinks it is the other way around — offer politicians an obese salary package for them to see their positions as attractive. Unfortunately, even after the massive wage increase for politicians you are not able to sleep with your doors open. In fact, even when your doors are closed you are not safe.

The TA is there to hold the operators accountable as soon as the reports are made of overcharging, but who holds our leaders accountable?

What is good for the goose is not good for the gander in Jamaica.

Stephen Williby

Swilliby@gmail.com