JUTC to face more losses in new fiscal year
Published:Friday | February 16, 2024 | 12:11 AMEdmond Campbell/Senior Staff Reporter
The financial haemorrhaging at the Jamaica Urban Transit Company Limited (JUTC) is expected to continue in the 2024-2025 financial year with the state-owned transport body projecting nearly $16 billion in losses.
This compares with a $9.7-billion loss that the cash-strapped JUTC is expected to record at the end of the current fiscal year in March.
However, when a government grant amounting to $8.3 billion is taken into account, the state-owned bus company is expected to record losses of $7.6 billion for the 2024-2025 financial year.
A review of the income statement of the JUTC shows that staff costs will move from more than $3.8 billion in 2023-2024 to a little more than $5 billion for the 2024-2025 fiscal year.
Security costs have also jumped from $296.5 million for the current financial year to $520 million in the upcoming fiscal year.
In November last year, Finance and the Public Service Minister Dr Nigel Clarke said the Government would provide the JUTC with the resources to finance its reduction in passenger fares for 24 months.
The Government reduced regular fares of the JUTC from $100 to $70 and for children from $30 to $25.
Regular fares will again be reduced in April this year to $50, children’s fares to $20, and pensioners $25.
“It is expected that for the period January to March of this fiscal year, this measure will cost approximately $200 million and for the full year period April 1, 2024 to March 31, 2025, this measure will cost $800 million,” Clarke told parliamentarians in November last year.
He said the changes in the JUTC fares are part of measures to cushion the impact of the fare hike in October 2023 on the overall inflation rate.
In October, the Government announced a 19 per cent increase in public-passenger fares, excluding the JUTC and the Montego Bay Metro.
The increase took effect on October 15.
A further 16 per cent increase was also announced to take effect in April 2024.
Montego Bay Metro, another state-owned bus company that provides transportation service at concessionary rates to students and senior citizens in western Jamaica, is projecting a net operating loss of $311 million for the 2024-2025 financial year. This compares with a net operating loss of $197.3 million for the current financial year, which ends in March.