Phillips tells Parliament JUTC faces $14.8b loss this year as only 221 buses roll out

Kingston — Opposition Member of Parliament Mikael Phillips used his Sectoral Debate 2026 contribution on Tuesday to paint the Jamaica Urban Transit Company (JUTC) as financially and operationally distressed, saying the urban bus provider has never been weaker since it began service in 1998.

Phillips told the House that JUTC has posted cumulative losses exceeding one hundred billion dollars across the past ten years, which he blamed on government neglect. He argued that the same sum, spent differently, could have funded a much stronger national transport system. He also said subsidies to JUTC are treated as revenue under public-sector accounting rules, which in his view hides how fragile the company’s finances really are.

On forward-looking figures, Phillips said the company is on course to lose about fourteen point eight billion dollars in the current financial year and depends on an eleven-billion-dollar state grant to keep running.

Despite the purchase of more than two hundred and fifty new buses, Phillips contended that fare-box takings — which he described as the clearest measure of performance — have barely moved or have declined. He listed several operating indicators he said show no real improvement, including bus rollout, fleet availability, cycle trips, revenue, the ratio of staff to buses, and cost recovery.

He warned that buying buses alone does not raise availability without a matching maintenance programme. Daily units dispatched, he said, remain under three hundred, down from about four hundred and fifty in 2016 when his party held office. With the new stock plus roughly one hundred and seventy older units, a workable fleet of about four hundred and twenty buses ought to be on the road, he argued.

To underline the shortfall, Phillips cited operations on Monday 12 May 2026, when he said only two hundred and twenty-one buses left all three JUTC depots to cover roughly eighty routes nationwide. He added that about four hundred and fifty buses would be closer to the right scale for the network. In a lighter aside on staffing, he suggested Cuba-trained personnel might have helped address the gap between political fixes and specialist care for the system.