EDITORIAL - The benefits of Colin Campbell's hide

Frankly, we expected little of Colin Campbell, except that he would have been impervious to any criticism of his appointment as CEO of the Jamaica Urban Transit Company (JUTC)

Or, more to the point, our expectation was that he would bring to the job a sort of political populism - allowing the wish to attract electoral votes to trump economics and discipline. It would be like when, as a junior minister and MP, he floated the idea of carving off a piece of the Mona campus of the University of the West Indies as a settlement for squatters.

He, in that regard, would care little, we felt, if illegal transport operators 'squatted' on routes assigned to the JUTC and would not be perturbed if the company's employees perceived it as a trough, its resources to be plundered for their benefit, once they voted for the People's National Party.

We are happily surprised that Colin Campbell, thus far, has operated to the contrary. He has, in so far as we can determine, been the toughest boss of the JUTC in its 16 years.

Mr Campbell has, in unprecedented fashion, attacked thievery at the company, causing the arrest and prosecution of employees allegedly caught taking the JUTC's equipment out of its facilities. Bus drivers who failed to furnish commuters with tickets - a potential source of financial leakage - have been hauled before the courts, even as the company introduces technology to better eliminate this kind of theft. Other forms of internal corruption are also under attack. Further, Mr Campbell has been insisting on road discipline and improved customer service on the part of JUTC drivers.

NO SMALL MEASURE

The success that Mr Campbell has so far enjoyed rests, in no small measure, on a characteristic of his, upon which we commented shortly after his appointment to the job: his impervious hide. As we said then, "The rhinoceros might have borrowed his."

The tough hide would have allowed him to ignore critics of a misplaced appointment. Instead, it has repelled the anger and the angst of those who have discovered that the old culture of corruption and free-for-all, whose bill taxpayers embraced, may be coming to an end.

Of course, Mr Campbell's hide wouldn't have been sufficient if he didn't have the support of his chairman, Garnett Roper, and the transport minister, Omar Davies, who obviously are inclined to the changes being made. But that hide and the broad support will face greater demand if the JUTC sticks with its next phase of reform: reclaiming more of its routes and insisting on greater order in public transportation in the Kingston Metropolitan Transport Region.

It is worth recalling why the JUTC was established. Several hundred individually operated buses ran in the city without central coordination. They raced between bus stops, crammed commuters into vehicles, and generally obeyed no rules. Public transportation in the capital was a modern-day ride of the Middle Passage.

But the JUTC was only a partial fix. It franchised some of its routes to private operators, many of whom changed little from the old days. The JUTC also fell into bad habits. Some J$50 billion of taxpayers' money later and a projected loss of J$2.2 billion this fiscal year, the company is seeking do something about it. It is meeting resistance. Hopefully, the Government stays the course - and, hopefully, too, Colin Campbell's hide.

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