KINGSTON, Jamaica
The Jamaica Public Service Company (JPS) has said that some 123,000 customers will receive estimated bills for October.
The company said this was due mainly to the disruption in the company’s meter-reading schedule caused by Hurricane Sandy. The JPS said it was unable to carry out meter reading in some communities in the period immediately after the hurricane, as many of the company’s meter readers were redeployed to assist with restoration.
However, yesterday the company was unable to state the communities that would be getting these bills.
“Our billing system is set up to calculate estimated bills using an average of the last three actual readings of the customer’s meter. Some customers may, therefore, have been estimated for days when they were without electricity following the hurricane,” explained Winsome Callum, JPS head of corporate communication.
Callum said in the event that a customer’s usage is overestimated, this will be reflected in the next meter reading. She said based on the reading, any necessary adjustment will be made to the customer’s next bill to reflect his or her actual usage.
The JPS says customers who have concerns about their bills are asked to contact customer care centre at 1-888-225-5577 (LIME) or 1-888-935-5577 (Digicel), or visit their nearest customer service office and speak with a representative.
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The European Union is funding a multi-million dollar energy service company (ESCO) project aimed at conserving electricity use across the island.
Executive Director of the Jamaica Productivity Centre, Dr Charles Douglas, said the 36-month J$65 million initiative could increase productivity and help create jobs as well as advance economic growth.
“We expect that the project will also do a number of other things. It will introduce new business modules, in terms of energy efficiency activities. It will also increase dialogue, trust, and confidence among the Jamaican populous,” he said.
He said the ESCO project has several components, including building public awareness, conducting training workshops, audits, and measurement and verification to determine the possible savings of the plan.
“With this project, the centre hopes to have an increase in energy effectiveness, as a result of the measures to be implemented. We expect to have an increase in the number of renewable and energy efficiency projects islandwide, to reduce high costs,” he said.
Douglas said that ECSO projects are common worldwide and tends to be very successful in countries where energy prices are extremely high, such as Latin America and the Caribbean.
He said that Jamaica, in comparison to other Caribbean countries, has one of the highest energy prices, both for electricity and gasolene, hence the reason for introducing the cost-effective initiative.
“At the end of the day, we want to see a reduction in the oil import bill, which obviously will help to reduce the foreign expenditure and imported oil, which the country is currently faced with,” he said.
Douglas added that unlike Jamaica, some countries receive energy subsidies, both for gasolene and electricity, but “our market is totally liberalised, in that we have no subsidy on electricity or gasolene, so we have to find ways to reduce these high costs”.
Both sectors to benefit
He said that the ESCO project aims to achieve this, and notes that if consumers conform to the practices of the project, then it will be a success and that both the private and public sectors would benefit in the future.
“We expect substantial benefits from this initiative to both small and medium enterprises islandwide. We are anticipating significant savings in the public sector, stemming from ECSO energy savings activities,” he added.
“There will be indicators to identify if the project has achieved success. We will be looking at schools islandwide as a possible indicator, while we conduct our evaluation to measure the achievements of the project.
“When the project concludes, we would like to have in place measures that will allow it to be sustainable. We are building the capacity of the project by getting the schools involved. From this, the hope is to sensitise children, so that they can go home, and encourage their parents to adopt energy efficiency practices” he said.
– CMC
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Energy Minister Phillip Paulwell – File photo
Jerome Reynolds, Gleaner Writer
The Portia Simpson Miller-led Cabinet is today expected to discuss the government
Orville ‘Shaggy‘ Burrell presents a cheque for $32 million to Lyttleton Shirley (right), chairman of the South East Regional Health Authority, from proceeds of the Shaggy and Friends 2012 concert to benefit the Bustamante Hospital for Children as sponsors look on.-File
Millions of dollars in machines donated by Shaggy to the Bustamante Hospital now in the scrap heap
Erica Virtue, Senior Gleaner Writer
Power surges from the Jamaica Public Service Company (JPS) are being blamed for the damage to a number of expensive medical equipment at the Bustamante Hospital for Children.
This has forced the hospital to refer patients to private facilitates where parents have to fork out thousands of dollars for tests that would have been done for free at the State-run hospital for children.
Last month,
KINGSTON, Jamaica
Energy Minister Phillip Paulwell – File photo
Daraine Luton, Senior Staff Reporter
The Cabinet will on Monday consider whether it will continue its appeal of the court ruling against the monopoly licence for electricity transmission and distribution granted to the Jamaica Public Service Company (JPS).
The parliamentary opposition has said Energy Minister Phillip Paulwell should resign given that the appeal contradicts his previous statements that he is in support of an end to the monopoly.
But Paulwell says the Government has not made a decision to appeal the ruling.
He said the attorney general went ahead and filed the application because the time within which to do so was running out.
This means if the Cabinet decides against pursuing the appeal, the application would be withdrawn.
Under the court rules, unsuccessful parties have 42 days from the handing down of a judgment in the Supreme Court within which to file an appeal.
The Supreme Court handed down its ruling in the JPS class action suit on July 30.
Asked why the Government did not make a decision earlier about whether it would appeal, Paulwell said the matter had not arisen because of several pressing issues.
Meanwhile, the energy minister insists that his utterances on the matter since the Supreme Court ruling have been careful.
He adds that he and the Cabinet are on the same page regarding promoting competition in the transmission and distribution of electricity.
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“MAN A WRITE and God a rub out,” our people say. To be more refined you can also choose “Man proposes, God disposes.”
HOWEVER you say it, man is not in charge these days. Higher powers rule. A week or so ago, we went up against Sandy, the “crumoochin” tropical storm/hurricane which turned out to be a tyrant in disguise. Before the bout began, it seemed that we would win. Sandy was supposed to be just a little pyah-pyah breeze-blow, but now we know. Water more than our feeble power.
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