Carrier operators in the Northern Division in 1986 were ordered by the Road Transport Department officers to dismantle seats at the back of the carriers.
According to an article published by The Fiji Times on May 18 of that year, the officers ordered the carriers off the road until the operators had dismantled the seats from the trays of the carriers.
Notices issued to the operators said the licences of the vehicles were “suspended until the defects are repaired”.
Traffic policemen on motorcycles began asking carrier operators to take their carriers onto the Transport Department ramp beside the Labasa market.
The operators, however, said they would not comply with what the department officers ordered them to do.
The Transport Officer Northern at the time, Isoa Tamani, said since the Supreme Court ruled on Section 55 ultra vires in 1984, the department had to enforce the law by getting carrier operators to remove the seats to prevent them from carrying excess passengers.
“It is not only in the Northern Division but throughout the country,” Mr Tamani said.
A police spokesman said police in Labasa were checking the carriers under Section 82 (4) of the regulation, which gave them the power to suspend the use of vehicles if the construction work on them did not comply with regulations.
In April of 1986, the operators complained that police were forcing passengers off their carriers on the basis that they could not carry more than two passengers per run.
A carrier operator from Tabia, Sant Kumar, said it had cost him about $200 to install the seat on the back of his carrier.
“We are not carrying any passengers, and yet the police are harassing us for nothing,” Mr Kumar said.
“The timberwork on the tray, which forms the base for the seats, provides protection for the tray and prevents it from getting scratched.”
The president of the Labasa Light Carriers Union, Rahimat Dean, said they were simply “fed up of being harassed by the police and transport authorities every day”.
Mr Dean said every time officers came up with something different to trouble them with.
“It is affecting our business, and we want the government to take some drastic action on this matter before things really get out of hand,” he said.
Mr Dean said some of the carrier seats were joined to the canopies and then bolted to the trays of the carriers.
“This makes it very difficult and costly for the operators to change in a matter of a few days,” he said.
“With the suspension order, they can’t make a living anyway, and if they don’t call this victimisation, then can someone tell us what it is?” Mr Dean said.
