The Jamaica Urban Transit Company (JUTC) is

the latest State-owned entity under scrutiny as the findings from the just-released

Auditor General Report are revealed.

Corruption and gross misconduct continue to

erode any attempt to push Jamaica forward, a bleak realisation highlighted by

the Auditor General’s report on the operations of the JUTC.

Among the many breaches identified, hundreds

of millions in missing inventory and more than a billion dollars spent to pay

unapproved staff are just the tip of the iceberg being unearthed, leaving

social media users feeling much contempt.

Most concerning from the Auditor General’s

report was the conclusion that the JUTC failed in every area assessed,

including operations management, effective maintenance, effective procurement

and inventory management. Even worse, several of the ailing public transportation

agency’s top brass do not meet the minimum qualifications required to hold

their posts.

These are all red flags and come at a time

when nearly a quarter of the JUTC’s fleet of buses is down for repairs.

For a State-owned agency, the situation

that has been allowed to manifest throughout the JUTC is unsustainable.

A slap in the face of its workers, the

commuters and the wider taxpaying society.

The Auditor General’s report, which reviewed

the operations of the JUTC between financial year 2017/18 and financial year 2018/19,

shows the company is an embodiment of the Jamaican proverb “everyweh yuh tun

makka jook yuh”, bleeding dollars from nearly every angle imaginable.

Further, with some 231,222 litres of fuel being

unaccounted for between FY2014/15 and FY2018/19, that’s approximately $36.5

million dollars lost. During the same period, the JUTC has been hit by an 11.6

per cent and 36.5 per cent decline in available bus services and ridership

respectively.

Don’t get me started on the incredible

confirmation that the JUTC sits on over $178 million in obsolete spare parts

while, on average, 16 buses are out of service for 139 days awaiting parts for

servicing and/or maintenance.

How, with all these procedural breaches,

could this company ever turn a profit? Or be a modern, viable option to meet

the transportation needs of the Kingston Metropolitan Area (KMA) which covers

the capital, Portmore and Spanish Town?

“The audit found that JUTC lacked a robust

maintenance and inventory management system to facilitate adequate supplies of

buses on a timely basis to meet the demand of customers. JUTC invested in

costly bus tracking and inventory management systems, which were not adequately

utilised, as well as made poor decisions in the selection of buses that were

unsuitable for its needs,” Auditor General Pamela Monroe Ellis wrote in her

overview.

“The audit also found weaknesses in JUTC’s governance practices and internal control environment, which were manifested by a lack of financial transparency, breaches of the Human Resource (HR) policy, minimal adherence to Government guidelines, including procurement law and guidelines and limited accountability by JUTC’s leadership. These inefficiencies also worsened the JUTC’s financial position over the period,” she continued.

The findings have led to the JUTC being a trending topic this Wednesday on Twitter as Jamaicans, like myself, dissected the report in shock.

to read the JUTC report, in full.Click here