Transport Minister Daryl Vaz continues to chide the People’s National Party (PNP) for what he calls ‘privilege badmind’ against the soon-to-be-operational Rural School Bus System.

Vaz, addressing thousands at the JLP Portland Parish Meeting in Portland Square last Saturday (August 30), noted that he came for a privileged family in Kingston, just as other MPs from the PNP’s side, with parents who could afford to send him to school such as the prestigious Mona Prep School and Campion College in St. Andrew, unlike the parents of children in rural parishes where the Rural School Bus System is soon to operates.

The incumbent Member of Parliament for Portland Western, seeking a historic fifth-term re-election on a Jamaica Labour Party ticket in a matter of days, blasted PNP detractors from the capital and urban parishes of Kingston and St Andrew, who “badmind” the Rural School Bus System.

“Those who bad-minding the Rural Transport System never had to take rural transport to school. Yet still they represent a rural constituency, and, for them to badmind you, the people who suffer every day to send your children to school in a safe, economical way, is the wickedest act that I have ever seen in this country,” Vaz said.

“I know the pain of my constituents who have lost children, who have gotten children injured, and how they have had to cope with it, but I am a caring Member of Parliament who is serving for the right reasons: to work and help the people,” the firebrand MP added.

The contentious Rural School Bus System programme, boasting a fleet of 110 buses, officially commences on September 1 after weeks of retrofitting and test drives on parochial roads island-wide.

The opposition has raised persistent objections to the bus programme, including that the average age of the buses being purchased under the initiative is 10 years old, as well as the ‘concerningly high’ average mileage of approximately 135,000 miles.

The PNP has vociferously criticised the JLP administration for purchasing faulty buses, but Vaz previously said that the buses are Thomas-built and Blue-Bird School buses, two of the most desirable school bus brands in North America.

In July, when the PNP first expressed dissatisfaction and sharp criticism with the Rural Bus System, Vaz fired back, dismissing their remarks as “badmind on steroids”.

Having represented the rural constituency of Portland Western for 18 years, Vaz said he “has lived it with the people”.

“They only want power at all costs, so when they make those statements, after 743 children have been injured between 223 and now, 65 children have been killed and 15 so far this year, and all they have to say is that: ‘Ah old bus’,” he said.