PORT MARIA, St Mary — The St Mary police will be out in full force on Monday, April 17, the latest effort to restore order in Port Maria. The centre of the town has been overrun by street vendors and rule-breaking taxi and bus drivers. The Jamaica Constabulary Force (JCF) has had enough of the chaos.

During Thursday’s monthly meeting of the St Mary Municipal Corporation, Deputy Superintendent of Police Joseph Foster, who is in charge of the division, told the local authorities that pedestrians and other law-abiding commuters are being negatively affected as they traverse the town.

“One of the problems is the taxi operators who are operating contrary to their road licence. That is, they have a road licence that states Baileys Vale to Oracabessa when in fact they are operating from Port Maria to Ocho Rios, which is a bus route. There are those who are just operating illegally,” Foster told the Jamaica Observer after the meeting.

To compound the problem, he said, legal operators are not utilising the bus park.

He said he and his team will be on the ground to bring order back to the town.

“In 2018 we had worked assiduously in enforcing the bus and taxi operators utilising the bus park and it worked,” DSP Foster said.

He was unable to provide a reason for the recurrence of the problems but stressed that efforts to regain and maintain control will only be effective if all stakeholders are on board.