Africa-Press – Seychelles. As of next year private bus operators will be allowed to provide transportation to the public alongside the Seychelles Public Transport Corporation, now that the Cabinet of Ministers has decided to allow private sector involvement in public transportation, a sector where the SPTC has a monopoly for over 40 years.
Giving the local press more details on the government’s decision taken earlier this week during a press meeting yesterday afternoon at his office at Botanical House, Minister for Transport Antony Derjacques said the decision has been taken after the Cabinet of Ministers discussed proposal for a new and improved national transportation system and took note of the challenges being faced by the current public transport provider ‒ SPTC.
Minister Derjacques explained that the decision to liberalise the public transport sector will give our public and visitors to our country another choice of public transport that will provide a service of better quality, standard, excellence with more comfort but at an affordable price.
But he noted that SPTC’s basic commitment and its fundamental role to continue to provide an effective transportation service to the people at an affordable price and a reasonable standard remains.
“SPTC will continue to provide transportation service on all routes but how it will operate in the future will depend on how the new private operators will work but I can confirm that there will be no change to the bus fares and card schemes for workers, schoolchildren, the elderly being offered by SPTC,” Minister Derjacques stressed.
The minister further noted that the current transport policy and other related laws are being amended to allow for private operators to come in and join the sector.
He pointed out that at present there are a few omnibus operators who are providing a limited shuttle service to the public mostly in the northern part of the country.
“With the new decision the transportation service will cover the whole country. We expect that with this new addition to public transportation, more people will use public buses and there will be less private vehicles on the roads, thus reducing traffic congestions. It will provide another opportunity for people to get to work and return home in a more reduced time. We want to transform how our people are transported around the country,” Minister Derjacques remarked. He noted that already there are interests and there are operators who have large number of buses.
With regards to the fares that the private operators will charge, Minister Derjacques said the government will not fix the price for them but he noted that currently the few operators are charging R25 per trip from Victoria to Bel Ombre for instance. Additionally with other measures the transport ministry is already in the process of setting up and encouraging the private sector also to take part in such as different story, vehicles parking at different locations around the town area namely at Stad Popiler and at the International Conference Centre Seychelles (ICCS), Minister Derjacques said these are all in line with the kind of transformation the country wants to see its people develop and embrace in the future.
But how is the ministry expecting the new changes to affect the SPTC?
Minister Derjacques said in the face of competition and the restructuring already underway at SPTC, it is expected that the corporation would be strengthened and be more efficient.
“The SPTC will also see the impact of the private service sector on its operation and this will probably bring it to reduce its operation costs with the number of employees who would no doubt be attracted to join the private sector. But SPTC which has been in operation and providing transportation services to our people since the 1970s, has all the expertise, its good reputation to maintain and it is being encouraged to further develop and strengthen itself rather than let itself go down. Additionally, the SPTC would no longer need R50 million of taxpayers’ money per year as subsidy,’’ said Minister Derjacques.
He noted that the SPTC transports around 50,000 people per day and it is expected that the corporation will continue to evolve and restructure given that it will have a competitor to match up to.
Meanwhile, how the new private operators will operate, if they are going to share the same terminal with the SPTC or whether they would have their own terminal, would be determined by the regulatory body, Minister Derjacques has said.
Principal secretary for land transport Patrick Andre explained that additional to amending the laws, a new independent regulatory body would have to be established to monitor, manage and enforce all regulations to ensure the proper function and operation of the service to the population.
“As it is today the SPTC is running through a decree which would be replaced by a new regulation which would cover the new changes to public transportation to include the private sector participation. The new body would also determine all the other aspects related to the operation of the new service,” said Mr Andre.
He said the next step now is they would engage with SPTC and the omnibus operators. An expression of interest for omnibus operators who are interested to take part in the venture to come forward and express themselves will soon be launched following which all information gathered will be passed on to the new regulatory body to be assessed and analysed.
Meanwhile, Mr Andre said the present omnibus licenses regulation will remain as is and the new regulation for public transportation will be separate and entirely independent.
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