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CCNTV6
  • 4 months ago
The Route Three maxi Taxi Association is pleading with authorities to return a sense of safety to their hub after two maxi drivers were robbed of thousands of dollars last Saturday.
Transcript
00:00He pointed a gun at me because I was fisting, so I'm always going to shoot because I'm serious.
00:08Rakesh Ramkissoun, a Route 3 maxi taxi driver plying the Shogwonos to Kurep route,
00:14is still traumatized after he and another driver were robbed at gunpoint at their stand in Shogwonos last Saturday around 9.20 a.m.
00:24He was relieved of his float and the money he accumulated to pay the vehicle's owner
00:30while the bandit made off through this abandoned piece of land.
00:34It was a shock, it was a frighten. I mean, first of all, I didn't stand on the road, but I didn't stand.
00:45And like what your family and they had to say when they heard about you?
00:48I didn't tell nobody about it. I can't tell my wife that.
00:52Knowledge of the robbery, he explains, will only worry his relatives.
00:57A report, though, was made to the Shogwonos police station, but there's something more frightening.
01:02Nothing going to come out of that. I positive, sure, nothing going to come out of that.
01:07The same with the guy who robbed wheat. That morning, the guy, he robbed more than one piece.
01:12I can show about that because he didn't cater.
01:18Vikash Kisundath, president of the Route 3 maxi taxi association,
01:23says the most recent incident is not the only robbery faced by drivers.
01:28Within the last six months, I would say we had probably about five incidents.
01:31He estimates this route brings in about 90% of commuters to the borough every day.
01:38The condition of the back of the maxi stand here is very unsafe.
01:41There is a infrastructure we're trying to build where we have a stand where we could have probably had cameras,
01:46which would have been a later on, right?
01:48We have been trying to do it out of our own pockets,
01:51and we have been asking for funding and some assistance from the last regime.
01:56But we always had this cat-and-mouse game with the last minister of transport together with the PS.
02:02Kisundath, however, says commuters are now opting to take PH taxis.
02:07It's either you go into the PH car, get a chance of getting probably kidnapped, robbed or raped,
02:12or you're in a maxi taxi with 15 or plus passengers.
02:15And the same thing can happen to you, right?
02:17But for some weird reason, they tend to go to the PH cars.
02:20The association met with the new transport minister and members are compiling a document of their needs.
02:27But their troubles, they say, are swamped by the existing bureaucracy.
02:32Because right now we have operators who are afraid to come back out.
02:34We have one of the operators from Saturday.
02:36He right now is home.
02:37He's afraid.
02:38He's telling me he's ready to sell his maxi.
02:40And I mean, they say we're supposed to be working in a comfortable environment, right?
02:44So I am pleading right now for the authorities to try and do something as soon as possible.
02:50So I am pleading right now for the authorities to try and do something as possible.
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