JAMAICAN businesses have long bemoaned the high cost of energy and the deleterious impact it has on both their businesses and the bottom line. Residents too have complained and in many cases it accounts for a third of employees wages.
With oil prices now above US$105 per barrel and geopolitical tensions in the Middle East threatening to send oil prices skyrocketing, the energy situation becomes even more precarious given the fact that Jamaica spends about a third of its foreign exchange earnings on imported oil.
Minister of Energy, Mining and Telecommunications Phillip Paulwell has vowed to oversee the liberalisation of the energy sector resulting in the reduction of electricity costs by as much as 40 per cent by 2014. Here he is supported by some of the biggest names in corporate Jamaica, including CEO of GraceKennedy Don Wehby; Managing Director of WISYNCO, William Mahfood; President and CEO of Jamaica Broilers Christopher Levy, and Managing Director of Jamaica Producers Jeffrey Hall.
Speaking with Caribbean Business Report from the Petroleum Corporation of Jamaica (PCJ) headquarters in Kingston, Paulwell said: “The energy situation in Jamaica today is probably the most critical economic issue facing the country. There is no way businesses can expand and employ more people with electricity prices at US 40 cents per kilo watt-hour, nor can we attract foreign companies to invest here with those prices. Any discussion I have with the business community, the high cost of energy constantly comes up. This means we are at a crisis point.
Solving Jamaica’s energy problem