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Jun 26, 2015 Letters
Dear Editor,
Allow me to congratulate the Minister within the Ministry of Social Protection – Simona Broomes, for speaking to officials at Bosai Minerals about the deterioration of the roads in Linden caused by their operations. As I understand it, the Minister visited Linden a few weeks ago and spoke to Bosai Minerals in this regard and the roads have since been partially fixed.
As an individual who has a vested interest in the trucking service provided to Bosai Minerals, I am particularly happy that the Minister has seen it fit to hold Bosai accountable for the maintenance of the roads traversed by the trucks transporting bauxite for their operations. I would also like to appeal to the Minister or other relevant authority, to look into the rights of workers in this sector. Bosai has been taking advantage of the workers and getting away with it because, it would seem, the former government didn’t care about the rights of workers; their only concern, seemingly, to collect revenue.
There are about twenty-five trucks providing trucking services to Bosai Minerals operations, stock piling bauxite for shipment. Originally, Bosai paid $8,000 per trip; however since they discovered that the system was flawed, in the sense that the persons tasked with confirming the trips made per truck, were inflating figures for their personal gain, they decided to hire contractors to deal with this aspect of their operations. Once the “Contractor” system was implemented, the payment per trip was reduced and also truckers/truck-owners are no longer being paid on time. Many of the truck owners have loan commitments with banks and with the new system, have been experiencing difficulty meeting commitments to their creditors, in a timely manner.
Compounding the problem of lower rates paid and late payments to truckers, is the fact that because of the terrible condition of the roads, the trucks frequently experience blow-outs and broken springs, which cause down-time and having to find additional funds for repairs before they can recommence working. The cost of a new spring is $140,000, while a second-hand spring costs approximately $91,000.A new tyre costs approximately $65,000, while a second-hand, $36,000.
As I write this letter (June 20th), I was just informed that truckers were paid today for the latter fortnight of May (15th — 30th) while the arrangement is for fortnightly payments at the end of each fortnight. Truckers/ truck-owners are currently only earning half of what they used to make and that is due to stockpile and rainy weather. So when the now reduced payments are consistently late, how can truck- owners meet their commitments? Will their bankers always be sympathetic and understand their position?
Honourable Minister, I was so happy to hear that you went up there and spoke with Bosai and since then the road is much better than what it was, but still has a far way to go to be completed. The new coalition government is doing a wonderful job. They have accomplished so much in less than a month. Notwithstanding, we need someone in authority to look into this situation. We are aware that Bosai is paying the Contractor in a timely manner, but he is not paying the workers on time. Also, Bosai should be called upon to complete the road repairs and consistently maintain them so that it does not end up costing the truck-owners hundreds of thousands of dollars in repairs, and would also alleviate the challenges of trucking during the rainy weather.
Arthur Taylor
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