FROM
CUBA
80 new bus inspectors will be deployed
in Havana
HAVANA, March 26 (Ariel Delgado Covarrubias
/ www.cubanet.org) - Havana's city bus officials
have announced that starting April 1, 80
new inspectors will take to the streets
in order to stem losses due to pilfered
revenue by bus crews.
According to official figures, 19% of the
moneys paid by passengers never makes it
back to the authority. Inspectors will be
boarding buses and asking to see passengers'
tickets, imposing fines of 20 pesos on passengers
who can't demonstrate they have paid, and
fines of 200 pesos on fare collectors who
haven't issued the appropriate receipts.
Buses in Havana are manned by a two-man
crew, the driver and a collector who walks
fore and aft collecting fares from passengers.
When they collect the fare, they hand the
passenger a receipt, and any transfers requested.
What the inspectors are trying to curb
is the practice by the collector of pocketing
some fares, either by not issuing a receipt,
or by some other subterfuge.
The problem is, even corruption has its
quirky characteristics and works within
a system.
Some bus riders quickly perceived that
the inspectors could represent a threat
to what little bus service is available
now. They say bus crews are paid so little,
less than 10 dollars a month, that if they
can't skim off the till, they won't have
any motivation to go to work and the critical
shortage of transportation could become
even more acute.
"That missing money goes to the pockets
of the drivers and collectors," said
one would-be passenger who said he had been
waiting for more than one half-hour for
his bus.
"The buses have a maximum capacity
posted, and crews overload them in order
to be able to meet revenue quotas and have
some money left for themselves," said
an older man, remembering a relatively recent
time when authorities decided to enforce
capacity limits on buses and there were
more people waiting for buses all over the
city than there were people who managed
to ride on one.
Versión
original en español
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