The Jamaica Public Service Company, JPS, is to challenge yesterday’s Supreme Court ruling regarding the exclusivity of
Energy is set to wreck the weak CARICOM. Energy is a ball and chain hobbling the Jamaican economy. Energy, if it is true that human action is the principal cause of global warming and climate change from global warming, is set to wreak havoc upon the entire planet.
Omar Azan, a former president of the Jamaica Manufacturers’ Association, in a blistering speech last week, said government-subsidised electricity cost in Trinidad & Tobago was giving an unfair advantage to that country’s manufacturers in CARICOM trade. At US$0.05 per kilowatt-hour, the cost of electricity in T&T is some six times lower than the cost of electricity in Jamaica. Azan has threatened to lock down the country over the issue. Others have been openly advocating that Jamaica should withdraw from CARICOM.
Meanwhile, a powerful coalition of private-sector companies has been shouting, through expensive advertisements, that the cost of electricity has increased by 135 per cent since 2001 and advising us to “pull the plug on high light bills”. Exactly how to pull the plug has been left unspecified, like the Azan lockdown of the country.
Citizens United to Reduce Electricity (CURE) has gone the unprecedented route of taking action in the Supreme Court to test the legality of the Jamaica Public Service Company (JPS) all-island monopoly. CURE is asking the court to declare null and void the licence granted in 2001 by the energy minister and renewed in 2007.
The licence, according to the claimants, is in breach of Section 3 of the Electric Lighting Act of 1890. CURE attorney Hugh Wildman is arguing that under the act, and in particular Section 3, the island is broken up into areas over which the responsible minister may grant a licence to either the local authority or a private company to generate and transmit electricity.
“What is not permissible under Section 3, or any other section of the act, is an exclusive licence over the entire island. A licensee or undertaker is confined to the particular area over which a licence is granted,” Wildman submits to the court.
“The language of the legislation,” he points out, “throughout speaks in the plural, that is, undertakers and not undertaker. The legislation clearly expressed in no uncertain terms that there must be several undertakers generating and transmitting electricity throughout Jamaica. The concept of exclusivity is unknown to the legislation.”
And with respect to the Office of Utilities Regulation, Wildman said Section 4(3)(i) of the Office of Utilities Regulations Act
Plans for the liberalisation of
Transformation of the energy sector, to bring more players into the industry so as to achieve greater efficiencies and reduce costs to consumers, was the key focus of the Minister of Science, Technology, Energy and Mining (STEM), Phillip Paulwell, during the first 100 days of his stewardship.
The Minister, recognising that Jamaicans are burdened by the high energy prices, said the time has come to liberalise the sector and introduce a fully competitive arrangement that
Come May 1, consumers will be able to apply for a net billing licence from the Jamaica Public Service (JPS) and the Office of Utilities Regulation (OUR), Minister of Science, Technology, Energy and Mining, Hon. Phillip Paulwell,has announced.
Speaking at the opening of the Jamaica Power Summit 2012 at the Jamaica Pegasus Hotel in New Kingston today(April 19), Mr. Paulwell said that both commercial and residential consumers can apply for the licence.
Net billing is provided for under the new energy licence renegotiated with the JPS.
CLAIMING he was distressed at the price of electricity at US 40 cents per kilowatt-hour, Minister of Science, Technology, Energy and Mining Phillip Paulwell said he is determined to ensure the full liberalisation of the energy sector to help drive down the electricity costs.
Speaking at a function in Kingston yesterday, Paulwell said that he was not prepared to wait on the Jamaica Public Service Company’s (JPS) three-year plan to bring down the cost of electricity to the consumer.
“I believe we have to free up the system. We have to liberalise. We have to enable the private sector with their R&D (research and development) to decide on the best technology for Jamaica at this time,” Paulwell stated.
The liberalisation of the market will not happen by “sitting around and waiting on a plan from JPS that in three years’ time we are going to do so and so”, the minister noted.
“It is when you unleash the spirit of competition, the vibrancy of the market, allow our consumers to finally become the rulers when it comes to energy,” he said.
Earlier this month, the JPS
Arthur Hall,