THE Government is being blamed for the precarious state of the Jamaica Urban Transit Company (JUTC), and the chaos which persists in the public transportation sector, linked to its licensing policies over the past several years.

The accusation came from Opposition spokesman on finance Julian Robinson in his 2023/24 budget presentation in Parliament on Thursday.

He said that even as there was a 96 per cent increase in public passenger vehicle road licences between 2015 and 2020, resulting in a 60 per cent increase in earnings for the Transport Authority, the limping bus company lost $1.6 billion in fare revenue over that period.

“People are faced with a crumbling public transportation system – standing up two, three hours and can’t get no bus. The JUTC is still more affordable than the other modes of transportation, but the Government has deinvested in the JUTC, and has made it unattractive, and unviable,” Robinson said, pointing out the ridership decline over the fiscal years 2015/16 to 2019/20, from 61 million to 41 million.

“But at the same time, according to Statin (the Statistical Institution of Jamaica) the Transport Authority increased the number of licences issued to contract carriage, hackney carriage, and route taxis from 17, 465 in 2016 to 34,550 in 2019,” he told the House of Representatives.

The South East St Andrew MP argued that these policies, which cut into the revenues of the JUTC, have left the system in shambles, and brought the company to its current adverse position.”If we want a society where children and students can get to school, and workers can get to work in a way where they dont feel threatened, they don’t feel in any way dehumanised, they don’t feel they have to pack up in the taxis, we have to make sure that the JUTC works. When you have more taxis on the road, it means the taximan has to hustle harder, because he is competing with more people, so you contribute to the indiscipline on the road, by the number of licences that are provided, while the JUTC’s fleet has not been replenished and has run down,” he outlined.

Robinson argued that adding new units to the JUTC’s aged fleet will not solve the company’s problems as there needs to be serious assessment of the management of the company, bearing in mind the resource constraints that have hamstrung effective management.

“Management has to be looked at, but in many cases without the resources, the management can’t do anything. If we want to reduce the cost of living, if we want to make a more efficient transportation system, there are significant changes that are required at the JUTC, in addition to the acquisition of buses,” he said.

Robinson noted the target of 18 million passengers for the current fiscal year, ending March 31, and projections for 31 million in 2023/24, pointing out that this projection must be put in context. “In 2016, the JUTC was carrying 61 million passengers, so even when you get the new buses which are programmed for 2023/24, you would only get to 31 million [passengers], which is a half of what you were doing six years ago. It means that when people go to a bus stop, they can’t get the bus, so they have to go into the taxis, so when we look at where we are on the roads, it is a significant part of how the Government has managed public transportation,” he said.

The Government has allocated $7 billion in the upcoming fiscal year to prop up the company’s budget. This corresponds with the company’s projected net deficit of a similar amount. The JUTC runs out just under 200 buses daily, less than half of the numbers needed to meet the passenger demand in the Kingston Metropolitan region. Finance minister Nigel Clarke announced this week, that 200 electric buses are being procured, the first 100 of which are slated for delivery in 2024/25. In the meantime, 70 units, including five electric, are expected early in 2023/24.