A walking failure: Dissecting JUTC’s damning Auditor General Report
Mentioned
Analysis
The article discusses findings from the Auditor General Report concerning a state-owned entity (JUTC), including missing inventory, unapproved staff payments, procurement and inventory management failures, lack of financial transparency, and weak governance/internal controls. These are direct government accountability and potential public-fund mismanagement issues.
Full Article
The Jamaica Urban Transit Company (JUTC) is
the latest State-owned entity under scrutiny as the findings from the just-released
Auditor General Report are revealed.
Corruption and gross misconduct continue to
erode any attempt to push Jamaica forward, a bleak realisation highlighted by
the Auditor General’s report on the operations of the JUTC.
Among the many breaches identified, hundreds
of millions in missing inventory and more than a billion dollars spent to pay
unapproved staff are just the tip of the iceberg being unearthed, leaving
social media users feeling much contempt.
Most concerning from the Auditor General’s
report was the conclusion that the JUTC failed in every area assessed,
including operations management, effective maintenance, effective procurement
and inventory management. Even worse, several of the ailing public transportation
agency’s top brass do not meet the minimum qualifications required to hold
their posts.
These are all red flags and come at a time
when nearly a quarter of the JUTC’s fleet of buses is down for repairs.
For a State-owned agency, the situation
that has been allowed to manifest throughout the JUTC is unsustainable.
A slap in the face of its workers, the
commuters and the wider taxpaying society.
The Auditor General’s report, which reviewed
the operations of the JUTC between financial year 2017/18 and financial year 2018/19,
shows the company is an embodiment of the Jamaican proverb “everyweh yuh tun
makka jook yuh”, bleeding dollars from nearly every angle imaginable.
Further, with some 231,222 litres of fuel being
unaccounted for between FY2014/15 and FY2018/19, that’s approximately $36.5
million dollars lost. During the same period, the JUTC has been hit by an 11.6
per cent and 36.5 per cent decline in available bus services and ridership
respectively.
Don’t get me started on the incredible
confirmation that the JUTC sits on over $178 million in obsolete spare parts
while, on average, 16 buses are out of service for 139 days awaiting parts for
servicing and/or maintenance.
How, with all these procedural breaches,
could this company ever turn a profit? Or be a modern, viable option to meet
the transportation needs of the Kingston Metropolitan Area (KMA) which covers
the capital, Portmore and Spanish Town?
“The audit found that JUTC lacked a robust
maintenance and inventory management system to facilitate adequate supplies of
buses on a timely basis to meet the demand of customers. JUTC invested in
costly bus tracking and inventory management systems, which were not adequately
utilised, as well as made poor decisions in the selection of buses that were
unsuitable for its needs,” Auditor General Pamela Monroe Ellis wrote in her
overview.
“The audit also found weaknesses in JUTC’s governance practices and internal control environment, which were manifested by a lack of financial transparency, breaches of the Human Resource (HR) policy, minimal adherence to Government guidelines, including procurement law and guidelines and limited accountability by JUTC’s leadership. These inefficiencies also worsened the JUTC’s financial position over the period,” she continued.
The findings have led to the JUTC being a trending topic this Wednesday on Twitter as Jamaicans, like myself, dissected the report in shock.
to read the JUTC report, in full.Click here
Related Articles
JUTC FIRES BACK AT AG
EMBATTLED State-run bus company, Jamaica Urban Transit Company (JUTC) is firing back at Auditor General Pamela Monroe Ellis’s performance audit which cited unchecked spending and improper recruitment practises. In a release last night, the company said it noted the public interest generated by the findings which highlighted several deficiencies and breaches across the former administration (2014-2016) and the current is indicative of broad and wide-ranging challenges.…
PAC to question JUTC heads on adverse audit findings
THE management of the Jamaica Urban Transit Company (JUTC) is scheduled to appear at a meeting of the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) at Gordon House today to answer questions about the adverse findings of an auditor general (AG) report on the entity’s performance between 2014 and 2019. According to the audit report, which went to Parliament in July last year, ridership with the state-owned bus company dropped by 36.5 per cent over the five years, and there was an 11.6 per cent decline in available bus service during the period.…
JUTC hunts fix for fuel problems
Headof the Jamaica Urban Transit Company (JUTC), Paul Abrahams, says the entity is trying to fix its fuel problems, while steering clear of solutions that would see its depots effectively becoming gas stations. “The ideal situation for the JUTC is not to receive product, not to dispense product but to have an entity that will do everything and all [we] do is pay for what goes into the buses,” he said, adding that this would also eliminate the chronic problem of pilferage — especially at its depots, which are located in volatile communities.…
JUTC needs to be run as a business, not a political trough
Here we go again. Like old man river, the losses, wanton waste, and corruption at the State-owned Jamaica Urban Transit Company (JUTC) just keep rolling along.…