– new vehicles could have been bought with sums spent on repairs

THE parliamentary Public Accounts Committee (PAC) delved into revelations from the Auditor General’s (AG) report of 2019 during its session on Monday, uncovering substantial expenditures related to the maintenance of vehicles in Region Six. Specifically, attention was drawn to the staggering costs associated with maintaining three ‘David G’ buses, amounting to millions of dollars.

As the committee examined the Auditor General’s report for 2019 for Region Six, the Minister of Public Works Bishop Juan Edghill enquired about the sum of approximately $54.29 million in maintenance costs on some 14 vehicles for that year as compared to a marginally lower sum in the previous year.

“What led to these significant costs because some of the maintenance cost [sic] is actually more than the cost of the vehicle; for example, we had a bus… $10 million… that’s more than the cost of a new bus,” he questioned.

In response, Regional Executive Officer (REO), Narindra Persaud indicated that the three buses identified in the report were those named the ‘David G’ buses and were pretty expensive to maintain, but were still maintained as they were still being used to transport children.

Persaud went on to add that when he subsequently took up the post of REO, those buses were put out of service as they recognised that they were costly to maintain, and new buses were purchased.

This led committee members to question the age of the buses given to the region to transport children.

Edghill indicated that whether or not these buses were imported, there would be a document that would indicate the manufacture date for the bus, which would determine if the vehicle should be acquired or not, as he added that spares go out after a certain time.

The REO noted that the regional officials did not have that document and were unaware of the age of the buses.

“So, we actually spent, in a year, just on the maintenance of a vehicle, more than the cost than if we had bought a new vehicle,” Edghill added.

Added to that, the committee also discovered that millions were also spent on the maintenance of ambulances, and as such, further asked what problems were being experienced by those ambulances.

Persaud told the PAC that the extensive use of the ambulances travelling from New Amsterdam to Georgetown resulted in the need for them to be serviced more often.

At the end of 2020, Minister of Education Priya Manickchand said that more than 50 per cent of the 21 school buses under the former ‘David G Five Bs” programme required repairs, and it would take millions to restore them to proper working condition.

At that time, Manickchand noted that there were five buses in Region Six, but only three were working. Working with reports from the various regions, she said that some of the vehicles could be repaired, while others could not be repaired.