Thirteen new Jamaica Urban Transit Company (JUTC) buses have been damaged, mostly by stoning, since the 50 new units were incorporated into the company’s fleet in mid-February, resulting in hundreds of thousands of taxpayers’ dollars being required for repairs and worsening the state-owned company’s cash flow problems.

Angered by the attacks, Transport Minister Mike Henry described them as reflective of the corruption of some minds among the citizenry, “including elements who seem always bent on using a cry of poverty and economic challenges to hide the actions of sick minds”.

Added Henry: “The attacks seem to be motivated by interests in the transportation sector whose viability, based on their unacceptable operating standards and practices which are tantamount to an insult for a public service, have been finding it increasingly difficult to compete with the standards of comfort and security which the new JUTC buses and management have brought to the system. Now, if that proves to be true and this unacceptable spate of attacks continues, I am going to have to resort to some rather drastic but effective measures to contain the development.”

According to the transport ministry, six of the units were damaged by stones in Portmore, St Catherine, where 12 of the older JUTC buses were also stoned during the period under reference.

“The stoning took place in the East Mid Street area of Greater Portmore, in Cumberland, Christian Pen, Waterford, Naggo Head, Bridgeport, Southboro, and West Port. All the incidents in Portmore took place between the hours of 8:30 pm and 9:30 pm.”

Yesterday, Reginald Allen, the ministry’s communications spokesman, said that since Wednesday night when one of the new buses was stoned in Bridgeport, a 13th new bus was attacked and damaged, and one of the company’s premium buses, which has been in the fleet for some time now, was slightly damaged.

The Bridgeport attack resulted in damage to a main panel of glass, which, the ministry said, “will require hundreds of thousands of dollars to have it replaced”. There was also minor damage to the body of the unit.

Allen said that while most of the repairs have cost the company in the region of $80,000 to $150,000, there has been at least one instance when the cash-strapped JUTC had to fork out close to $300,000 to repair damage from stoning. He also said that in one of the cases, a driver got a bit of glass splinter in one of his eyes.

The ministry said that outside of Portmore, there have been three separate stoning incidents involving new JUTC buses on Washington Boulevard in the Corporate Area, with two taking place at the Duhaney Park/Cooreville Gardens intersection.

“Another new bus was damaged elsewhere in the Corporate Area, while a fire, believed to have been the work of arsonists, resulted in damage to a new unit in the Half-Way-Tree Transport Centre,” the ministry said. “There were 16 other stone-throwing incidents which affected the older buses in Kingston during the period under reference.”

Another new unit, the ministry added, was stoned in the Central Village area of St Catherine, where two older units also came under similar attacks since the introduction of the new buses.

The ministry said that in response to the spate of attacks, the police will be mounting a number of initiatives to address the situation.

Additionally, arrangements are being made to allow properly identified police personnel to travel on the JUTC buses free of cost as one of the measures to deter attacks on the buses.

Yesterday, Neville Francis, the manager of the JUTC’s Portmore depot, said that while he had no empirical evidence, the attacks appear to have their genesis in opposition to the standard of service being provided by the JUTC.

“I suppose part of the problem is that we have been offering some fierce competition and our strategies are working,” Francis told the Observer.

He said that since the introduction of the new buses, the JUTC’s passenger lift on the Portmore/Kingston route has increased from 41,000 to 47,000 daily on the regular service only.

Francis did not have data on the Premium service, but said “people seem to be gravitating towards our buses”.

He said that JUTC officials will be meeting with the police on Tuesday next week to work out response strategies.