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Category: JPS

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JPS News

LETTER OF THE DAY – JPS Does Not Seem To Care

October 26, 2012

A JPS technician at work. - File
A JPS technician at work. – File

THE EDITOR, Sir:

WE ARE customers of the Jamaica Public Service Company. However, for over two weeks we have seen the service disconnected for up to 12 hours each day. The light is cut off from as early as 7:40 a.m. and does not return until minutes to eight in the nights.

We called after noticing this daily occurrence for a week and a half and were informed that the light is being disconnected because persons in the area are not paying their bills. When we asked for suggestions on coping with this situation, one customer service representative told us ‘to move’ while supervisor said ‘we should tell our neighbours to pay their bills’.

We reside in Windsor Heights, Central Village, St Catherine, and do not see why paying customers should be inconvenienced like this each day because JPS has failed to collect monies owing to them and want for us to do their compliance work. I think the customer service staff are rude and very inconsiderate.

We are now left with our food and medication that require refrigeration going bad and electrical appliances being damaged as a result of these daily outages. We are being seriously inconvenienced and JPS does not seem to care. They have not offered an end date to this and I am guessing that, based on the community in which we live, we will see this issue persist with no urgency to having the matter resolved.

suffering

I wish we could do as JPS customer service representative Antoinette suggested and move, possibly to Beverly Hills or Cherry Gardens, but, unfortunately, not all of us can reside in these areas.

I hope this letter will push JPS to realise that they do have customers here who need the service that they provide and that we have been paying for this service for years and we should not be made to continue suffering like this.

Lisa

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JPS News

JPS promises improved service to Hanover customers

October 26, 2012

The Jamaica Public Service (JPS) has promised to provide a more reliable service to its many customers in sections of Hanover, who have been experiencing frequent power outages.

According to the company’s recently appointed operations manager for the Hanover, Winston Bansie, problems with the feeder that supplies power across sections of the parish, including the capital town, Lucea, have led to the frequent power outages and flickering being experienced.

“There is more than one thing that affects that feeder. One of them being the maintenance within the parish,” said Bansie, adding that “the flickering is a part of the overall JPS’ maintenance protection scheme”.

Bansie, who was speaking at the recent regular monthly meeting of the Hanover Parish Council explained that work on the two feeders that supply power to the parish will be undertaken immediately.

He told the meeting that the company has mandated a new management team to have the service in the parish improved. His first job, he added, is to undertake maintenance within the parish and to put the least reliable feeder on another source.

The utility company has also promised to step up the repairs of malfunctioning streetlights across the parish.

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JPS News

JPS’s Tomblin Shines Glimmer Of Hope

October 23, 2012

By Gary Spaulding

President of the Jamaica Public Service (JPS), Kelly Tomblin, is emerging as an illuminating figure in this rather dark era in Jamaica marked by the spectres of cynicism and scepticism.

Tomblin’s promise to humanise the JPS, made at a recent Rotary Club of Kingston function, has lit up a realm in which promises are made and broken all too often; and where acceptable customer service delivery is almost non-existent.

If the avowals of Tomblin to transform the JPS into something remotely human – a Herculean task if there ever was one – are greeted with scepticism from a disbelieving populace, Jamaicans cannot be blamed.

Given, however, her energy and guided by her seeming penchant for detail, Tomblin came across as eminently credible as she highlighted her undertaking to bring back civility to the light and power company.

In unveiling her plans, there were some flashing signals which suggest that, more than likely, she can be taken seriously, even as she admitted that the public glare is having a less-than-comforting effect on her company.

MULTIFACETED PLAN

It was not the engaging personality of the JPS president that flickered the brightest when she spoke at length about her plans for a JPS with a human face, rather, it was the fact that she spent much time plodding painstakingly through the various dimensions of the multifaceted plan.

Perhaps justifiably, the clamour for an end to be brought to JPS’s monopoly in Jamaica is in vogue.

What was particularly refreshing was Toblin’s unsolicited promise to Rotarians last week that she was determined to change the fixtures of the JPS’s internal structures and promised that the changing beams would be forthcoming within six months.

Like her most recent predecessors, Tomblin is not Jamaican. However, Jamaicans have primarily been the face of the organisation. While the policies of the principals of JPS may have been harsh beyond words, the unfitting and downright indecent conduct to the people of Jamaica by its Jamaican workers, particularly to those in the lower realms of society, has been troubling.

It is a moot point that the boorish behaviour of many Jamaicans who are paid to serve those who indirectly pay them is commonplace, but there are a few companies that ensure that the customer service they offer is sound.

Tomblin started well by acknowledging this unacceptable disconnect from the people of Jamaica and proceeded to shed light

Alternative Energy Government JPS LNG News

LETTER OF THE DAY – Some Thoughts On Energy

October 23, 2012

Paulwell
Paulwell

THE EDITOR, Sir:

 

I wish to congratulate Claude Clarke on his recent article headlined ‘Could Paulwell’s plan light the path to recovery?’

This is the best article written to date in connection with our cost of energy problem. I doubt if electricity rates can be reduced to 15 US cents per kilowatt-hour in the near future but do know that the current design engines working on heavy fuel oil (HFO), if installed, would be 35 per cent cheaper to generate electricity than what is currently being generated at Hunts Bay or Old Harbour Bay stations. Even if LNG is not immediately available it would be a start to the reduction of rates.

The modern day engines are dual fuel and can be shipped within 12 months. They can operate on HFO and be switched to LNG (without extra cost) whenever it comes.

The modern dual fuel engines operating on HFO carry a heat rate of under 8,000. The JPS plants at Hunts Bay and Old Harbour Bay go as high as 12,200. If energy fuel were liberalised two years ago we would now have been able to sell it at a lower cost to the consumer.

Welcome news

I believe that the statement made in Parliament recently by Phillip Paulwell is welcome news for the energy sector and he should be congratulated. Now that the announcement has been made, how do we proceed?

I do not believe that breaking the monopoly on transmission and distribution should be a priority but more effort should be put towards reducing the base load cost as quickly as possible.

D

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Government JPS News

Census Highlights Power Gap – Consumers Outnumber JPS Customer Base By More Than 200,000

October 22, 2012

A JPS technician at work. - File
A JPS technician at work. – File

Over 805,000 households in Jamaica or 91.3 per cent of the total captured in the 2011 census of population and housing, use electricity as a source of lighting.

The number is more than 200,000 bigger than the customer base of the country’s sole transmitter and distributor of electricity, the Jamaica Public Service Company (JPS), which puts the number of clients on its books at under 600,000.

Responding to the findings, JPS Head of Corporate Communications Winsome Callum said the gap “probably an indicator of the number of households that are using electricity illegally”.

According to the census, a not insignificant number of the total 881,078 households captured under the study – 48,629 – use kerosene as their source of lighting. Other sources of lighting not specifically identified are used by 7,515 households, while 19,635 did not report a source.

As expected, St Andrew households are the largest consumers of electricity with 184,176 having access; followed by St Catherine where 151,865 households are powered, Clarendon with 68,286 households having access, St James with 56,403, and Manchester where power penetration is across 54,125 households.

Of the total number of households, 80 per cent or 705,235 use liquid petroleum gas (LPG) as a source of fuel for cooking; 15,803 or 1.8 per cent use electricity for that purpose; 8.9 per cent or 78,700 use wood; and 6.1 per cent or 53,876 use charcoal. Less than one per cent or just 94 households use biogas; and only 25 households use solar energy – suggesting that the use of renewables in Jamaica is still in the infancy stage.

The five largest concentrations of LPG users are found in St Andrew followed by St. Catherine, St James, Clarendon and Manchester.

According to the census conducted by the Statistical Institute of Jamaica (Statin), just 16 per cent of households or 141,835 have access to treated piped water for drinking. Another 68,839 households reported having access to treated drinking water, but it is not piped.

Statin found that 503,411 households or a significant 57.1 per cent have access to piped water used for drinking, but said it is not treated. Another 85,392 households or 9.7 per cent have access to water for drinking from other sources not specifically identified, but it is also not treated.

Statin has not identified a reason for the large number of households not having access to treated water for drinking.The census found that 7.5 per cent or 66,843 households now use bottled water for drinking.

However, the low level of treated piped water used for drinking is not necessarily reflective of the state-owned National Water Commission‘s (NWC) services according to Statin’s Director of Censuses, Demographics and Social Statistics Dr Valerie Nam.

Public relations officer at the NWC Karen Williams said the agency has a customer base of about 425,000, comprising residential and commercial consumers and that it treats all the water it supplies.

Consumption of the NWC’s supplies is reflected in the census document by separate breakdown of households’ source of water used for domestic purposes. It shows that 450,625 households or 51.1 per cent obtain the commodity from a public source and have it piped into their homes.

Another 140,678 or almost 16 per cent of households had water piped into their yard; 52,371 or about six per cent obtain it from standpipes and 10,776 or 1.2 per cent get it from catchments.

mcpherse.thompson@gleanerjm.com

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