Ministry supports use of maxis for children in rural areas

This is according to Ashram Deoraj, Director of School Supervision, Ministry of Education in response to concerns raised by Minister in the Office of the Prime Minister Ayanna Webster-Roy and Senator Rodger Samuel about monitoring the safety of students using the service and the road worthiness of sub contracted vehicles. The issues were expressed at yesterday’s PAC hearing at the Office of the Parliament on concerns of the Office of the Auditor General in relation to the public accounts of the ministry.

Acting Permanent Secretary at the Ministry of Education Angela Sinaswee-Gervais, said that the ministry depends on safety officers and principals at schools to provide information in relation to the service provided by the sub contracted maxi taxis. “We don’t have anyone at head office in the ministry to do this. We expect that the schools with the transport that comes into the school on a daily basis, would be able to raise red flags with us if there are issues with a particular maxi or maxis. But we really do not have the capacity at the ministry level to go and do that,” she said.

While the agreement in place was not written in black and white before, she said, a contract was in the draft as to what will be PTSC’s and the ministry’s roles. As soon as the draft is completed it will be sent to PTSC’s attorneys for comments.

Asked by Webster-Roy what the ministry was doing to ensure that their contract and subcontracts were being executed to ensure that students are safe traveling on the road, Deoraj said, the ministry does not have a particular person to verify the number of children using the maxi taxis on a daily basis.

The ministry pays for the number of trips, and not by the number of students using the service, he said.

However, based on information provided by the schools, he said, the ministry would be able to say how many children use the service.

Meanwhile, Samuel said that during one of his visits to a school in Trinidad’s north coast, he ventured into one of the maxi taxis hired by the PTSC and verified what students told him about travelling in the vehicle and seeing the road below them through the damaged floor of the vehicle.

Deoraj said, the ministry’s agreement with the PTSC includes road worthiness of vehicles being sub contracted.

“However, if there are cases where the road worthiness is questionable,” he said, “They should be reported and we will act on it.” When it examined the processes by which PTSC subcontracts maxi-taxis, he said, “the ministry is comfortable with that relationship at the moment.”