Howard Campbell, Gleaner Writer

Millwood

THE NATIONAL Transport Cooperative Society's (NTCS) long-running legal tussle with the Government will continue despite a change in administration, the company's president, Ezroy Millwood, said last week.

"The Government may have changed, but our stance has not," Mr. Millwood told The Gleaner, last Friday. "I think it's fair that we give the new Minister of Finance (Audley Shaw) time to settle in before we present our case," Millwood said.

On September 3, the Jamaica Labour Party defeated the People's National Party (PNP) to form the Government. The NTCS, which currently operates buses on some hill routes in the Corporate Area and Portmore, St. Catherine, and the PNP Government had been involved in a bitter court fight since 2000.

Filed an appeal

In January 2005, the NTCS filed an appeal against a November 2004 Supreme Court ruling that set aside a $4.5-billion award, by an arbitration panel to the company, one year earlier.

Retired Court of Appeal Judge, Boyd Carey, former president of the Court of Appeal, Ira Rowe, and Queen's Counsel Angella Hudson-Phillips, who formed the panel, ruled that the Government had breached a 10-year agreement with the NTCS, making it the official transport service provider for the Kingston Metropolitan Transport Region.

The Government subsequently launched the Jamaica Urban Transit Company in 2001.

Locked horns

The NTCS and the previous PNP administration first locked horns in 1996 when the former lobbied for a fare increase.

This did not end until 2000 when the Government offered a $172-million buy-out package to the NTCS.

Approximately $72 million of the amount was the Government's buy-out bid for the last five years of its contract with the NTCS. The rest would be compensation for the company's over 400 bus owners.

The offer was rejected and, in August 2000, lawyers for the NTCS filed a suit against the Government in the Supreme Court seeking $3.7 billion in losses. In March 2001, both parties agreed that the issue should have gone to arbitration.

Just over three years later, in October 2003, the NTCS was awarded $4.5 billion. With interest, the figure rose to $10 billion.

However, that was overturned one year later in the Supreme Court by Justice Patrick Brooks. He also said the NTCS should pay the Government's legal fees.