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Dr Louis Zabaneh, Minister of Transport
"With the Novelo case, they reached that point of the monopoly which would be justified because in economics, in basic principles, even in law related to business and economics, you can justify certain structures in economics so you'd have a competitive structure, you'd have a semi competitive structure and then you'd have oligopolies and monopolies meaning how many people are serving a particular market. And so it's usually a no-no for monopolies right especially in some particular cases where you have the public interest at heart so for example in water service, in electricity service, these kinds of things, you don't want 5, 6, in a small country like our, suppliers and coming to hook up pipes, it's redundancy and so you don't get the lowest cost of unit of whatever is being provided to you. Public transportation falls in that category. So in that case then, in 2002 or around that time, this monopoly was formed but then that monopoly has to be secured. Just like how, lawfully, you cannot go and just supply electricity to the grid or there's a process to go and supply water, there are laws that protect you. So in a similar case, we're proposing a public/private partnership, which BEL is, BWSL is, just that we didn't conceived of that term back then, meaning that a part is owned by the government and part by other parties that are non-government. In a similar way we're proposing and public/private partnership because in that company we'd bring in all the terminals, along with the operators, we do a valuation, which is our next meeting on the 30th of May is to select an auditor that will go and do a proper valuation of all the operators and the terminals and figure out a global value for the industry. Government will have a percentage in there, the operators will have a percentage in there. So we create one company. Now, unlike what happened in the past, every operator has the opportunity to be an owner still of this new company. So it's not that they're being kicked out or whatever. They have that option. So they're evaluated, let's say they're valued half a million dollars, they can get that in shares in the new company, or they may say, give me everything in cash, I'm out. Or they may say I want to keep $200,000 in, give me $300,000, whatever the case may be. So they have that liberty, that freedom where they're respected and you can stay as an owner, a shareholder."

And he added that with that new company comes new technology and modern upgrades to the entire system - which he hopes can be rolled out by the start of next year.

Dr Louis Zabaneh, Minister of Transport
"This phase that we're about to enter has to do with the valuations as I said, we go to Cabinet and then we go to the next phase which when we agree on the values then we go towards forming the new company and the development plan and we're aiming for the 1st of January of next year to kick this off, if things go well enough. And technology so it's not new technology, the same technology that you'd see for air traffic control. You go to companies in developed countries, they have a control room for their buses. You have the map of the country, you could see a bus that leaves Corozal at 5 and now it's 5:45, you could track that bus where it is, is it ahead of time, behind time, with a coding, then you have cameras in the buses that you can look inside the bus and see what's going on. Just like now you can have cameras for your bus and you're away, you could check your phone, it's technology that's there already. Then payment systems, you have a card and you swipe your card, it's $10, your card has $200 in value, whatever you have put in there. Then one of the big problems the bus industry has had is conductors not bringing back all the income to the owners. That has been a problem from day 1 so with this now, it's much easier to control your revenue, so you swipe your card, that money goes direct to the bank account and so now you're revenues might be as this level with the old system, so your revenues you are going up and the cost is going down so it's a much more sustainable model. These are some of the benefits we're looking at."

He also added that within three years, they would be aiming for an entirely new bus fleet, with 50 new buses hitting the road every year.

But while all that may sound good to commuters, the Belize Bus Owners Association rejected the proposal. Their press release states, quote, "Over the past decades, the BBA members have operated under very challenging conditions, and have been consistently denied access to the critical fiscal concessions and the necessary level of Government regulation… The BBA therefore appeals to the Government to grant Operators the very same concessions being proposed to the NBC… including duty exemptions on the importation of buses, parts, and tires, removal of GST on fuel, protection of routes by the Transport Board, proper regulation of the industry by the Government." End quote.