OPPOSITION spokesman on transport Mikael Phillips has declared that the Jamaica Urban Transit Company (JUTC) is in its “most pathetic state” since its creation, warning that the State-run bus company has spent the last decade “languishing in the hospital’s accident and emergency department” amid mounting losses and policy neglect.

Making his contribution to the sectoral debate in the House of Representatives, Phillips accused the Government of allowing the country’s main public bus operator to drift deeper into financial and operational crisis despite billions of dollars in subsidies and the acquisition of hundreds of new buses.

“They have called on a carpenter to examine the patient, when what is truly required is oxygen and a skilled physician to diagnose the ailment and prescribe the cure,” Phillips said.