Acting managing director of Transport Authority has big plans for agency
ACTING managing director at the Transport Authority (TA) Willard Hylton is on a mission to improve the authority and the services it provides.
Hylton, who has just completed his first month in his new position at the TA, told JIS News that he has taken the approach of obtaining feedback from stakeholders, especially the staff, at this time.
“The information that we gather is going to be helpful in determining the way we lead the TA,” he said, pointing out that the authority has 16 locations across the island and that he and his management team have been to all locations on a fact-finding mission and to listen to the concerns of the staff.
“The management team is quite clear about some of the things that we need to do to make the staff happy and more productive at work,” he explained. “We have to look after ourselves to be able to deliver what the public is expecting,” he added.
The acting managing director admitted that some of the facilities are in need of improvements to make them more comfortable for staff, and has committed to ensuring that this is done. There are also outstanding internal staff concerns, he said, that will be attended to as well. “So we have a clear understanding about the things that we need to do to make the staff happy at work, and we believe that if the staff is happy, it transcends itself right through, not just where we are but to the entire country”.
Hylton said he has also been taking the time to meet with other stakeholders, such as the route taxi associations, to determine how to support their activities. It is important, he said, for stakeholders to understand that their operation is not just about money and fare increases but rather what can be done to make the business that they are operating more viable.
In addition, he said that he would also be focusing on communicating with the public so that they can understand their role in how public transportation systems operate in Jamaica.
Hylton, who brings more than 30 years of experience in sales and marketing to the position, taught for a number of years at the community level, through the HEART/ National Service Training Agency Trust.
He is a former regional manager and former general manager in human resources at the authority.
“I bring all of what I have learned and garnered over the years to see how best we can move the TA to the next level. I think the public expects that we are not going to be just an average entity in government. The public, which is more aware and conscious of how things should be, is demanding more,” he said.
Hylton said the the Transport Authority is on the cutting-edge and comparable with any other transportation system worldwide, and he is determined that the entity will be in a position to be compared that way and will remain viable. “We earn our own money, so in everything that we do, although making money is not the primary thing, we have to ensure that we are able to carry on our activities,” he said.
“I am big on the staff. Everything starts there. I see a TA where our staff turnover will become the lowest when you compare with other entities in government. We want to model entities in Jamaica where staff satisfaction is high, which results in low staff turnover,” he told JIS.
Hylton, meanwhile, says he wants to see a public transportation system where the players in the industry will understand that this is not just a means to ‘eat a food’. “It is a business that we are delivering and we must be able to provide the highest standard of public transportation,” he said. He pointed out that there is a lot of work to be done, noting that the barriers to entry to the sector are low and that the authority has to help those persons to grow.
“I don’t think we have been focusing there a lot because we spend much of our time trying to deal with the TA’S many moving parts, and that limits the time that we have to help the people in the sector. I do believe we have a role to play in making sure that they can understand what they are doing,” Hylton said.
He said that he started an initiative in November 2020, doing orientation sessions with new licencees to understand their role and how they should be utilising that licence in the context of a business. The authority, he said, will be working to ensure that there is a general quality standard for the operators in the sector, so that it is replicated across the country where end users can expect a particular standard of service.
GEORGETOWN, Guyana (CMC) — The Caribbean Community (Caricom) said yesterday it was “deeply disappointed and concerned” by Venezuela’s announcement of a plan to establish a new territory in the area over which it is embroiled in a dispute with Guyana.
In a statement issued as Cariocm leaders, meeting virtually for their 13th Special Emergency Meeting of the Conference of Heads of Government of the Caribbean Community, the regional grouping said it “firmly repudiates any acts of aggression by Venezuela against Guyana” and reiterated “in the strongest possible terms, its firm and unswerving support for the maintenance and preservation of the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Guyana”.
The statement came on the heels of Venezuela’s President Nicolás Maduro last Thursday issuing a decree to establish a new “territory for the development of the Atlantic Facade” in the Essequibo region, which Caracas has claimed and which is at the centre of its decades-old border dispute with Georgetown.
“I approve the creation of the territory of the Venezuelan Atlantic front, approved, run and be fulfilled for Venezuela, for the Essequibo, for the national union,” he said during a meeting held in Miraflores
Palace with the Council of State and the Defence Council.
Maduro also stated, on Twitter, that he intended to “reconquer” the disputed
Essequibo: “I signed the decree by which the territory for the development of the Atlantic Façade of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela is established, which becomes part of the legal, diplomatic and political actions for the defence of our rights for more than 200 years.”
“That territory belongs to the Venezuelan men and women and we are going to reconquer it,” he said in another tweet.
The Guyana Government subsequently rejected the decree, and the statement issued by regional leaders yesterday gave full support to the Caricom member state.
“Caricom is deeply disappointed and concerned at the decree and subsequent statements by Venezuela with respect to that country’s border controversy with Guyana, including intimations of the creation of a strategic area of national development called ‘Territory for the Development of the Atlantic Façade’,” it said.
“The Caribbean Community is in full support of the judicial process underway at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) which is intended to bring a peaceful and definitive end to the long-standing controversy between the two countries.”
Last month the ICJ ruled that it had jurisdiction to hear the long-running dispute surrounding the 1899 arbitration which established the border between the two countries.
However, Venezuela rejected that decision, saying that the court is incapable of reaching a practical and satisfactory settlement. It is adamant that the Essequibo, a territory of 159,542 kilometres with oil, gas, mining and forestry resources, belongs to Caracas.