Opposition Spokesman on Transport, Mikael Phillips has raised questions about the Government’s rural bus service which is currently being rolled out in select parishes.

“We, on this side, have long championed the introduction of rural school bus services. I proposed such a programme in a previous Sectoral Debate,” Phillips said during his recent contribution to the 2025/26 Sectoral Debate in the House of Representatives.

He said that while the state-owned Jamaica Urban Transit Company has begun rolling out rural school buses, serious questions remain, including:

• What are the age and mileage of the used school buses?

• Where will they be parked and maintained daily?

• How will they be fuelled?

• What arrangements have been put in place?

• Who will operate the buses, and what structure has been established?

• What is the cost of the subsidies?

According to Phillips, “the lack of infrastructure makes this programme unsustainable in its current form”.

He said the Opposition People’s National Party is proposing the RIDE Programme (Rural Initiative for Delivering Education), a partnership with private operators with subsidised transportation for 20,000 schoolchildren island-wide, compared to the 4,000 proposed in the Government’s plan.

“This plan will focus on children who must take more than one transport to get to school, impacting those families more. It is not only from town centres to town centres, it will also be from those far away communities, which most likely do not have any official routes,” Phillips outlined.