Lynford Simpson, Staff ReporterTRANSPORT AND Works Minister Robert Pickersgill is yet to receive a report from the five Swedish consultants brought in to assess the operations of the Jamaica Urban Transit Company (JUTC) following a report that showed the state-owned bus company was insolvent in July.
The Minister had told journalists in July that the report would be ready by the end of August. It should contain, among other things, recommendations on how to stem the reported daily losses of $3.6 million suffered by the company, established in 1998.
However, when contacted Tuesday, Mr. Pickersgill was not definitive on when the report and its recommendations would be ready.
"We are meeting with the consultants. One of them had to go away, he's coming back shortly and, thereafter, boards are to be appointed again. I'm dealing with the matter and dealing with it as a matter of urgency but I'm not yet ready to report," he told The Gleaner.
The review of the company earlier this year was ordered by its President, Sterling Soares. It was conducted by management consulting firm KPMG Peat Marwick. Apart from the daily losses of $3.6 million suffered by the JUTC, it found that the negative worth of the company as at February 2002 stood at $1.13 billion.
This was in addition to an accumulated deficit of $2.63 billion to February 2002.
The KPMG review also found that since 1998, annual projections of passenger volumes had fallen 45 per cent per annum and on a bus-by-bus basis total readership had fallen by 33 per cent.
With the company described as top heavy, it is expected that the foreign consultants will recommend a trimming of the management staff. They are also expected to make recommendations regarding the recruitment of regular staff.
This, as the KPMG review found that a flawed recruitment process had resulted in the employment of persons in positions for which they were not qualified.
When contacted again yesterday, Mr. Pickersgill refused to comment on reports that the company was expected to lose in the region of $1 billion this year. "I'm not making any comments on the JUTC. I've had a meeting with the Chairman, with the Swedes, with the relevant people. We're to meet again, they're going to give me their recommendations and then we move from there," he said.
He added that: "I'm not going into that scenario now at all. I have to be brought up to date with report and then we see where we are in terms of the recommendations they're making".
