As the debate rages over the importation of old buses that once served the US school system, which are being used in Jamaica as part of the rural area school transportation setup, there are many issues to look at.

The Government has confirmed the purchase of 110 left-hand-drive buses from the United States through a Jamaican import company. That entity has now been determined to be unqualified to have undertaken the task of bringing in the buses, according to Jamaica’s Trade Board, according to a Jamaica Gleaner report today (July 13).

Well, that’s more than a red flag, as it is the first indication that systems were not followed from day one. 

According to the Government, the buses cost J$1.4 billion to buy, which would reveal an average unit cost of J$12.7 million. I suspect that import duties on all would be waived. One of the challenges here is the age of the buses, ranging, we are told, from eight years to, in one case, 16 years, but the vast majority are over 10 years. Now, is that good or bad?

The price seems quite excessive for buses that age, which I understand have racked up many miles on the odometer, the main criterion when purchasing vehicles in the United States. I am advised that the Government could have bought brand-new, 30-seater Toyota Coaster buses for around the same money and much less if import duties are not applied.

I have been a passenger in two of those buses, travelling on school trips with my nephew in the US. Even though roads in the USA are generally good, the buses are not comfortable to ride on – a trip akin to trucks taking animals to the market.

To have bought them to serve Jamaica, what with bad roads in this Caribbean island among the worst in the entire region, and surfaces in rural zones far worse than those in urban centres, there will be issues of maintenance … major ones.

The question of getting a steady supply of parts to keep them actively on the road must be a huge concern. And even before they would have started their first journey, the 20 that we are informed have arrived, are now undergoing a process of retrofitting, in order to have entrance/exit doors on the left side of the vehicle, instead of the right. That itself is a costly affair, and could exceed supplementary budgetary allocations if not monitored properly. In other words, the usual hustling and padding of bills must be kept in check.

The Opposition People’s National Party (PNP) has said that it would instead choose another route in the much-needed rural school bus programme. But the party erred in using one word in its list of alternatives – taxis. Huge blunder. There ought to be no accommodation for the ruthless taxi drivers who now transport children to school and back home. They are hooligans and pose a danger to commuters in general, and should never figure in any upgraded transportation system, rural or urban.

The exploration of the coaster buses is one that I think would be solid value for money, but then the humungous buses are here already (some of them), so what can be done now?

The Government said that there was a certain “urgency” to bring in the old buses in time for the start of the new school year in September, but why this sudden rush of urgency for the 2025-26 academic year? You guessed it … election is in the air. Why couldn’t we have thought about that before?

My fears are deep. Maintaining these old buses will come at a price, and I do not know if the State can keep pace with that, regardless of which administration takes the reins of power in the next six weeks.

Mould and the loss of productive time

The awkward subject of mould interfering in the lives of people who only want to get the job done without much interference, acted up again last week. 

There was a rather uncomfortable depiction at the offices of the Administrator General’s Department, downtown Kingston, which extracted anger from those directly affected, and others who sympathised with them. 

Maybe the people who serve the Administrator General’s Department thought that they were alone in their moment of discomfort, but, they were not. For only a few days before, workers at the Ministry of Justice along Constant Spring Road were subjected to the same punishment. Some employees of that ministry stayed away from the physical workplace; others decided to grin and bear it. However, the agony of having to suck up so much was not so rosy. 

While the ordeal at the Ministry of Justice did not make the headlines, take up much time on the television screens, and earn priority attention on radio airwaves, what they were feeling was just as bad as what the people downtown were forced to go through.

The thing is, there are more and more of these cases popping up, since the mother of them all–Cornwall Regional Hospital–led to a billion-dollar embarrassment that is still unresolved at that western Jamaica location in Montego Bay.

For mould to affect any place, there must be a start. After its early detection, the next step must be to, as some of my friends used to say, nip it in the bud. The clear message of not allowing such a fungus to have its way, is not often dealt with before it gets to a certain stage. Then, it becomes almost too late, and develops into a costly affair. It is then, too, that panic sets in, depending on its state. 

By that time, too, the cost of rectifying the issue had become deeply burdensome. So, a huge contract is awarded to mop up the mess, and, of course, an often-inflated budget becomes the big-ticket item, and before a wall is scrubbed, the kickback money is long worked out.

If this country just decided to adopt a proactive attitude, so many things would run smoothly, and in the end, cost far less. 

Lights, action and water at Sabina…

So, the long-awaited, historic day/night Test cricket match at Sabina Park in Kingston got off to a blazing start last Saturday.

There were no major explosions, as hosts the West Indies took on Australia in a victory bid to save face, following their loss in the three-match series, with the Aussies having completed wins in Barbados and Grenada to retain the Sir Frank Worrell Trophy, the symbol of Test match supremacy between both teams.

The standard of cricket on the first day into night was not as high as expected, certainly not from world number one Australia, but the atmosphere was appetising. The popular George Headley Stand was closed for the match, although I think that will not be the case for the two T20 matches coming up, and in hindsight, the officials might have done otherwise, reducing the entrance fee as an incentive.

So, the North Stand and the corporate boxes had their share of support. What was interesting to me was what seemed to be the high turnout of young women to brighten a place that was brimming with added light soon after the bulbs from India were switched on around 6:00 pm. 

As usual, the heavy security presence at the entrance ensured that potential irregular activities were kept down. What I found to be a little too over the board, though, was when my knapsack was searched and the security man said that I could not enter with the two bottles of water that I had taken, with the labels on. So, he cut the label off one, but punctured the other bottle in trying to get the label off, thereby spilling all its contents.

Some strange things happen at Sabina Park at times, so that’s why I chose to take my own water, as a certain gentleman rightly did when he visited the Jamaican Parliament last year. You just don’t know what could happen with the water there, and I wasn’t prepared to find out.

Prices continue to ‘fly’

The cost of purchasing household items, in particular food, has been rising at a rapid pace since the latest round of crawling peg devaluation of the Jamaican dollar set in weeks ago, despite the intervention in the money trading market by the Bank of Jamaica to steady the slide and control inflation.

I decided to find out on my own how quickly prices were moving, by visiting two supermarkets, one wholesale establishment and a Chinese restaurant over a two-week period to test the climb.

There was general movement from week one to week two on over 50 per cent of the stuff that I had thrown under the microscope, and when you reason with the workers, they will admit that many of the imported products had attracted price hikes over just a few days. They said that their bosses told them that it was because the US dollar was getting stronger than its Jamaican counterpart.

The wholesaler had put another J$100 on a 3.78-litre bottle of juice that I’ve recently grown fond of. Again, pretty much the same story of some of the raw material being used, having to be imported.

The owner of what I consider a top-notch Chinese restaurant, based on the taste of its food, said that as much as he would have liked to keep the price of meals down, he could no longer bear the cost of one of my favourite dishes, and had to put on something… A ‘whopping’ J$150.

When I look at those movements, I pose the question again: How do poor people survive in Jamaica?