Vaz: Rural school buses up to par despite no maintenance contract

Minister of Transport Daryl Vaz greeting students at the Half-Way-Tree Transport Centre on Monday as he monitored the roll-out of the National Rural School Bus Programme at the start of the new school year. (Photo: Karl Mclarty) TRANSPORT Minister Daryl Vaz has indicated that a new contract arrangement for the maintenance of vehicles used in the National Rural School Bus Programme should be finalised by next month, but even with that not in place, he is confident that the buses are in good working condition. In a media release last month, Opposition spokesperson on transport Mikael Phillips revealed that the maintenance contract with El Hydro Limited — the supplier of the school buses — expired in March and no new agreement had been finalised more than four months later. At the time Phillips demanded an explanation as to whether the buses were properly serviced and were ready to transport students for the new academic year which started on Monday. The call came days after an incident in Manchester, where one of the school buses caught fire and was destroyed. The driver had reportedly dropped off students before the incident occurred. There is no official word yet on the cause of that fire. But Vaz told the Jamaica Observer on Tuesday that no challenges were experienced during roll-out of 99 school buses, on 86 routes, serving 126 schools across the island on Monday. “We [the transport ministry and El Hydro] had an arrangement that ended March 31st — end of the [2025/26] financial year. So the formalisation of a new contract arrangement will be finalised within the next 30 days. In the interim, the buses are being properly serviced and maintained. The buses are in good condition,” said Vaz as he added that the ministry is pushing ahead with plans to acquire more units to be used in the programme. “We are seeking to get 100 purpose-built school buses, similar to the ones that we are using now, for next year’s school term. We are in discussions with the Ministry of Finance to try and get that finalised, along with the last 100 of the 300 JUTC (Jamaica Urban Transit Company) buses,” said Vaz. He explained that the daily average number of students who utilise the Rural School Bus Programme is between 12,000 and 15,000. “You would realise that in order to properly serve all of the schools in rural Jamaica, we would probably need upward of 300 to 350 buses. So that is my aim and objective, to get a full roll-out of school buses for rural Jamaica,” added Vaz. He pointed out that in the year since the programme was launched there has been no instances of injuries to the students while riding the buses. “We are very proud. That, to me, is the biggest vindication and the biggest win of the Rural School Bus programme, despite the fact that it has had other gains in terms of punctuality and school attendance. “The fact that we have not had any fatal accidents causing death or injuries is absolutely a vindication, especially against all of the utterances that were made prior to the launch of the school buses,” said Vaz who underscored that the buses are still being monitored with the use of technology. The Rural School Bus Programme is managed by JUTC and is aimed at providing safe, affordable transportation for students across the island.