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When the new Transport Minister first proposed a national bus company to solve the issues plaguing the public transportation system, he was met with a flat out rejection from the Belize Bus Association.

But today, the bus owners and the Transport Ministry held their second meeting where the operators were able to voice their concerns about the proposal. They tentatively agreed to take the next steps, which involved establishing a committee - which comprises 4 operators and 1 ministry rep - to select auditors. Dr Louis Zabaneh explained what the next two months will look like.

Dr Louis Zabaneh, Minister of Transport
"I think at the heart of it, they want to have some assurances that if they agree to the proposal that they will continue to have an income as what they're making now or better than that. I think that's across the board one of their main concerns and of course at this point we're still at the conceptual stage so we couldn't give them details but what we agreed to today was to select 3 auditing firms that will go across the country to the 31 operators and determine their value and their cost structure and so that now will be closer to having more details on how we'll be able to transition."

Courtney Menzies:
"When they had originally rejected the proposal, they said why can't you give the concessions to us, the concessions that this consolidated company would have. How were you able to convince them to think differently?"

Dr Louis Zabaneh, Minister of Transport
"In fact, we investigated how many of the operators supported that letter and it was less than 50% of the market, a lot of smaller operators. And we understood their concern. What I said to them today is that it would be very difficult for us to support such a request because what we would in fact be doing, given the difficulties they're already facing, for example many of them say that they don't have trust, maybe even in their drivers or conductors because their fuel is being sold, their parts are being sold, they don't get the income back from the conductors that they should. All of that is of grave concern to them naturally as it should be. And from our end, we're saying, if they consolidate, that those things are much more properly managed and we're able to be in a better setting that in fact brings greater profitability to them."

And though the operators are still hesitant, Dr Zabaneh stated that trust needs to be built but that they must also keep the concerns of commuters at the forefront.

Dr Louis Zabaneh, Minister of Transport
"No question about it, it's a matter of trust, or bridging that gap but we must remember that the other stakeholder, in fact the most important stakeholder is the commuter and it's been for too long now that our commuters have been suffering. That in fact the bus sector has not been improving but deteriorating so it is incumbent on all of us including the operators to make the best effort to collaborate. I think that we on the government side have done the best that we can to assure them that what we do will not in any way make it worse for them."

"I think that as we go about getting the details that more and more of these operators will come on board. You would have seen that the larger operators are pretty much on board and now, because we have a lot of smaller operators, we have to address their concerns and we have assured them today that we will do that on a one on one basis as necessary."

And while the next stages will take place over June and July, the ultimate deadline for a revamping of the public transportation system is January 2026. But there are also mixed feelings about that timeline.

Dr Louis Zabaneh, Minister of Transport
"Some of them said it's too tight, others as you heard said that they want to try to meet the deadline because they have been experiencing deadline after deadline being passed so we are flexible, we set the deadlines and we're going to as best as we can to meet those deadlines and for whatever reason, we need to extend then we certainly will but we need to have some targets to try to meet. I believe the two months that we have will be tight to do the valuation all across the country, we will see how well that will work out and then the next phase from there goes into organizing the company itself, working on the legislation and all of that so I think we will just go as best as we can to try and meet the deadlines that we have."

For now, there are a lot more meetings to be had before anything concrete is established. But commuters are hoping this time - after numerous missed deadlines - the transformation will finally come to fruition.