JUTC swipe unjust

Martin Henry

What is the real surprise is not that there has been some violence against the Jamaica Urban Transit Company (JUTC) with the take-back of subfranchise routes last week, but that there was so little. Not that I am advocating violent attacks against the state company, but its actions have been a major provocation both to private investors in public transport and to the long-suffering commuting public.

Jamaica's urban transport woes are now more than 40 years old, beginning with the slow and painful death of the Jamaica Omnibus Service (JOS) that started in the early 1970s. The JOS began operations by a British company in 1953, replacing an earlier bus service that had itself replaced the electric tramcars in 1948. In 1974, the Government nationalised the then struggling company without paying a fair market price to the British owners. The JOS was driven into the ground by the government policy of low fares, inadequate subventions, and a rapacious and more nimble system of robot operators that had emerged and allowed to take up the slack in urban public transport. The company was finally declared dead in 1983.

For the next dozen years up until the mid-1990s, urban

public transport was a rough-and-ready organisation of the robot system, basically on the principle of one man-one bus tied to a fixed route. The system was chaotic, undisciplined and inefficient.

Government came back into the public-transport system with the establishment of the JUTC with Dr Peter Phillips as minister of transport in 1995. By then, cooperatives of private-bus stakeholders owned and operated blocks of routes under government licence. What a just and fair government should have done is to buy back the routes at full commercial value, taking into consideration not only the value or rolling stock and fixed assets, but the potential income foregone by the operators with the pulling of the licence. We won't quickly forget Ezroy Millwood, president of the National Transport Cooperative Society, and a dogged fixture in the news who went to his grave battling for a just settlement to private operators through the courts and in endless negotiations with the Government.

Government policy allowed a parallel system of subfranchises to the JUTC on its less-profitable routes. Registered route taxis were allowed on other routes to offset the incapacity of the JUTC to move passengers. Meanwhile, a competing system of unlicensed robot taxis mushroomed.

Facing the same problems that killed the JOS, the JUTC has consistently made losses. Fixed low fares, inadequate compensating subventions, competition, and corrupt and inefficient operations threaten the viability of the company.

loss of revenue

Appearing before the Public Accounts Committee of Parliament, permanent secretary in the transport ministry, Audrey Sewell, attributed the ballooning losses of the JUTC to three reasons: Primarily the decline in the annual subvention from Government to the JUTC, the loss of revenue to illegal transportation operating on the exclusive routes, and the difference between actual fares and the government-subsidised fares paid by students and the elderly, for which no refunds are provided by the Government.

The company, starting on bad footing and operating badly, has never operated in the black between revenue earned and subventions received. JUTC has never provided a reliable and efficient service to commuters. It has been unable to maintain its fleet, with hundreds of buses being out of operation at any one time and several dying on the road daily.

Under new management with the Rev Dr Garnett Roper as chairman and former People's National Party government minister, Colin Campbell as managing director, the company is resorting to draconian measures for viability. Subfranchise licences have been unilaterally pulled. For select operators, relicensing fees have been astronomically jacked up. Fees have moved from the region of $300,000 per year to $750,000 and are due now! The Jamaica Association of Transport Owners and Operators described the terminations, when they were announced, as "arbitrary and a malicious destruction of the livelihood of over 2,000 people within the Corporate Area".

In addition, subfranchisees must rebrand their vehicles in the colours of the JUTC buses and meet other start-up expenses. Clearly, this is not a business deal. It is not a fair or just deal. It is a back-door scheme to drive up the revenue of the JUTC by hol' dung, tek weh, and/or to force operators out of business so the state bus company can totally have the routes.

To add insult to injury, the company is pushing a $100,000 fine or six months in prison for any commuter convicted of using unlicensed, and therefore illegal, public transport. The manifest excessiveness of the punishment, which far exceeds the 'crime', has been the talk of the town. People are boiling with anger over this blatant injustice. By way of comparison, a ticket for infraction of the road traffic law, at worse, is no more than a tenth of this fine. Should the Government unwisely proceed, the first arrest may very well generate a far more substantial backlash than was seen last week. The people's natural sense of justice and fairness has been deeply offended by this wicked imposition.

enforce oppressive laws

The police were active last week enforcing the law in favour of the JUTC. It is always a difficult challenge when members of the security forces, drawn largely from the poorer classes, are called upon to enforce oppressive laws that manifestly hurt the interests of the masses.

A letter writer to The Gleaner has reasonably and mildly set out the problem, and I rerun him in full: "While the authorities must be commended for their efforts to clean up the public-transport system, I have some grave concerns about the effects they will have on the members of the public who have to use these private buses.

"... This trebling of the franchise fee for private bus operators seems excessive. For some, this new fee will be more than the value of the buses they operate.

Based on my experience, I have little confidence that the JUTC can take up the slack after some of these operators are driven out of business.

"However, I have deeper concerns as a passenger," he wrote. "According to the new rules, we, passengers, are liable to be charged or fined if we are deemed to be supporting illegal operators, or 'robots'. I am sure that this aspect of the changes to come must be some sort of April Fools' joke.

"Many times when I use the bus, on some routes, I have to wait forever for one to come. Route 31 is particularly bad. Route 81 doesn't run on Sundays. JUTC stops operating buses after certain hours, when many of us still have to go to work. What are we passengers to do if a 'robot' operator decides to take us to where we need to reach? Refuse?

"It is clear that those who came up with these new policies are SUV owners and don't use public transport," the writer charges.

"It seems that Radcliffe Lewis is eager to start arresting people - again. I really do hope that he retrains himself when he confronts 'collaborating' passengers!"

The Government is shafting the people with this JUTC solution!

Martin Henry is a university administrator and public affairs analyst. Email feedback to columns@gleanerjm.com.