JUTC bus depots moving ahead

THE JAMAICA Urban Transit Company expects to save about $2 million a year from the relocation of its executive management and corporate offices to Spanish Town from New Kingston.

According to Dean Peart, Minister of State for Transport and Works, the relocation is part of cost-saving measures which the government-owned and operated bus company has been forced to undertake.

The Spanish Town bus depot which will be used to house the JUTC is to be officially opened on Wednesday by Prime Minister P.J. Patterson.

Mr. Peart said construction of bus depots was continuing at a fairly rapid pace as the government moves to create a schedule-run bus service in the Kingston Metropolitan Transport Region.

Already, $110 million has been spent on basic infrastructure, paving, clearing and marking at the Portmore depot.

He said contracts for the construction of maintenance and administrative building at a cost of $130 million have already been approved by the General Contracts Committee and are awaiting Cabinet approval. Construction is scheduled to take five months.

At Rockfort, east Kingston, $90 million had been spent on infrastructure work, the construction of a security wall and clearing and marking. Cabinet had approved the $26 million contract for the refurbishing of the operations building, while the $82.7 million contract for the construction of the maintenance building is awaiting Cabinet approval. Completion is expected by year-end.

The Transport Ministry is to work with the Ministry of Education and Culture to set up a school-bus system in each parish. To kick-start the operation, 50 of the 130 buses purchased by the Transport Ministry with the takeover of the Eastern and Conurban franchises will be sold to the Education Ministry.

Mr. Peart said that each Member of Parliament will be given the opportunity to "purchase these buses, as is, to be utilised in their constituency". The move, he said, was a part of the on-going recognition of the importance of education to the Jamaican society, and showed the "commitment of the Government to the establishment of a properly integrated and inter-linked bus system".

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