By Trudy Simpson,
Staff Reporter
PRESIDENT OF the Jamaica Urban Transit Company (JUTC), Sterling Soares, has said that Jamaicans can expect to have state-owned buses operating in some rural towns within five years.
In an interview with The Gleaner, Mr. Soares expressed the hope that this would become a reality in Ocho Rios, Mandeville and Montego Bay once the Corporate Area franchises were completed.
Currently, the JUTC does not have control of the Portmore and Northern franchises which control several bus routes in the Corporate Area and Portmore, St. Catherine. Those two franchises are owned by the National Transport Co-operative Society (NTCS), headed by Ezroy Millwood.
Since April, the Government has been negotiating with the NTCS for the take over of its franchises. However, negotiations were put on hold after Mr. Millwood filed a case in the Supreme Court, claiming over $5 billion in compensation for the remaining five years on the 10-year contracts.
Mr. Millwood filed the suit after claiming that the Government's terms of reference for compensation did not include the unused portion of the franchises, but only dealt with payment for their acquisition. The NTCS is claiming over $1 billion for the termination of the franchises. Negotiations have since resumed.
"What we want to do now is to get the Kingston Metropo-litan Region really and truly running," said Mr. Soares.
"If we can do that, then we can start to move to Montego Bay, Ocho Rios, Mandeville, the major centres and then what we will have to do is start to look at how we link those major areas and use the bigger buses in these areas and smaller buses in linking them," he explained.
Mr. Soares also dismissed claims that buses which had belonged to the NTCS would be used in the future on rural roads.
"If you go out there and look at those buses you'll realise that what call buses are not buses. They are just good for the scrap heap," he said.
In addition, he reassured the public that the JUTC buses deployed would be suitable for rural roads.
"We have a shorter bus, the (Mercedes Benz) Catosa bus, which we send to the country all the time and the clearance on it is very good," he said.
