Vaz Rubbishes Claims Procurement Money Could’ve Bought 100 New Buses

Transport Minister Daryl Vaz is rubbishing claims the government could have bought 100 brand new coaster buses for the money he used to procure 110 used buses from the United States.

Mahiri Stewart has that story.

Nationwide News has seen the import licences for 42 of the 110 buses being used for the government’s rural school transportation programme set to be launched in September.

According to the documents, the cost of the buses being purchased by the ministry range from as high as US $20,00 to as low as just under 10-thousand US dollars.

In a statement on Wednesday, Transport Minister Daryl Vaz said part of the PNP’s attack on the programme involved the use of bloggers to raise doubt about the cost of the buses.

Several bloggers have been posting documents purporting to show that the government could have bought brand new coaster buses for the 1.4 billion spent instead of the 110 buses to be procured for the programme.

One such document is an invoice for a 2026 Toyota Coaster Bus.

The discounted price on the pro-forma invoice comes up to JM $12.4 millions.

But Minister Vaz says not only is the math wrong but the premise of the calculation is also wrong.

According to Minister Vaz, the $1.4 billion to be spent involves way more than just the cost of procuring the individual buses from the US.