Dozens left stranded in St Catherine, Clarendon and St Ann
DOZENS of commuters were yesterday left stranded in the parishes of St Catherine, Clarendon and St Ann as taxi operators parked their vehicles to protest against the increase in motor vehicle licensing fees.
“Dem man yah too wicked man. Dem raise up them pay 100 per cent and a come kill the small man. Dem redundant we, we buy a little car. Now them want (us to) make blood out of stone,” a taxi driver who plies from Spanish Town to Horizon Park route said. The man was part of a group of taxi drivers who had earlier staged a demonstration along the Old Harbour Road in Spanish Town.
A team of police officers from the Spanish Town Police Station, however, stood nearby to prevent the taxi operators from blocking the road.
“We are here to keep the peace,” a police sergeant said. “This community is very volatile and anything can happen with these people.”
Across the street 12 year-old Jemoy Johnson, a student of the Innswood High School, told the Observer, “I have been here for over an hour and nothing to carry me to school. I want to go to school the taxi dem strike and the bus dem pack up,” the youngster said, shaking his head in despair.
Other children were seen walking along the major roadway. A group of children who attend the Spring Village All Age complained that they were forced to walk home from school as no transportation was available.
“Is Church Pen we a walk go, a long walk dat from up a Broilers,” said a boy, who walked with his shoes in his hands.
In Clarendon, the protest action took on a different tone. Felled trees, rocks, assorted debris and smoldering logs, placed about 25 yards apart, littered the May Pen to Kellits main road. Road were blocked in the districts of Friendship, Morgan’s Pass, Shake Hand Corner, Bull Head Road, Red Hills, Colonel’s Ridge and Brandon Hill. Motorists using that roadway were forced to join forces in order to clear the blockages.
One truck driver, while voicing his support for the taxi drivers, condemned the actions of those whom he called idlers.
“If you ask some of them, where is your car them can’t show you.” Some people, he said, had nothing to do and were glad for the opportunity to join in the protest. He also condemned the people who chopped down trees to block the roads.
“The taximen have my support but the man dem whe a cause problem fi stop di foolishness cause nuff a dem don’t even know whe the man dem a protest fah,” the truck driver commented as he used his truck to haul a large tree from the road.
In Kellits, the drivers there had parked their vehicles in support of the protest action but there was no sign of a demonstration.
Across the border in St Ann, protests took place in Content Gardens and in front of the National Commercial Bank branch in the capital, St Ann’s Bay.
Taxi drivers in Claremont who had also parked their vehicles resumed their services in the afternoon.