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Electricity Theft Could Mean Lights Out For JPS

May 10, 2013 jrobinson

TOMBLIN:

Arthur Hall, Senior News Editor

The Jamaica Public Service Company (JPS) is expressing concern that the long-running problem of electricity theft could cause its demise.

“For the JPS this might very well be the death knell … . There is no business in Jamaica that can lose $2 million to $3 million per month and still be viable, so for us it has reached a very critical point,” declared JPS President and CEO Kelly Tomblin yesterday during a media briefing.

Tomblin underscored that the JPS was at a financial precipice and could fall because it is in breach of a debt covenant which could trigger a demand for it to pay off US$425 million in debt.

According to Tomblin, the financial state of the company is worsened by electricity theft which triggered a penalty of US$30 million last year. That more than doubled the US$12.9 million which the JPS recorded as profit for the year.

“It is causing deteriorating financial performance that keeps me from doing many of the things that my team and I want to do to improve customer service,” Tomblin told journalists during a media briefing at the JPS’ New Kingston office.

“It is not just the theft, but it is also the penalty that we get because of the theft, so we are up against it and we don’t know how to combat,” added Tomblin.

Illegal connections removed

She said for the first three months of this year more than 54,000 illegal connections (throw-ups) were removed; 75 persons arrested and approximately 36,000 electricity audits conducted.

The JPS has also intensified the introduction of its Residential Automated Metering Infrastructure (RAMI) tamper-resistant metres with more than 22,000 persons connected at a cost of approximately $1,000 each. In addition, a special unit has been established to go after the commercial entities and other large users involved in electricity theft.

But Tomblin noted that these measures have not significantly reduced the level of electricity theft across the island.

“Estimates are that we still have 150,000 or up to 200,000 households stealing electricity and that’s against the backdrop of less than 600,000 customers … that could be a third of the people stealing so that is significant.”

Multifaceted approach

According to Tomblin, the problem of electricity theft has to be addressed in a multifaceted way because it is a socio-economic problem that cannot be addressed only by the JPS.

“We have a goal in the country that 100 per cent of Jamaicans should have access to electricity … but everybody cannot afford electricity, so what is the stop gap or the bridge? There is also the community acceptance of theft because we don’t see persons being arrested in droves.”

Tomblin argued that the root of the problem is crime and poverty and until these problems are addressed electricity theft will continue.

She charged that there needs to be tighter legislation with harsher penalties for electricity theft, even as she noted that the JPS does not benefit from the arrest of persons caught stealing electricity.

The JPS boss added that it needs the input of several different governmental and non-governmental organisations to come up with new measures to deal with the problem of electricity theft.

“We all have to get around the table and say let’s find a different solution because this one isn’t working.”

arthur.hall@gleanerjm.com

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Electricity Government JPS News

Electricity theft, debt threaten company’s viability, says Tomblin Electricity theft, debt threaten company’s viability, says Tomblin

May 10, 2013 Webmaster

KELLY Tomblin yesterday reiterated the dire financial state of the Jamaica Public Service Company (JPS), and expressed disappointment that two State-owned sugar companies in Clarendon and Westmoreland allowed residents of neighbouring communities to steal electricity amounting to more than $100 million.

“We have about 230 people, we are spending a lot of money each year working on preventing theft. Those people are out in the community, serving my customers, helping to figure out how to get smaller payment frameworks and doing other customer service, improving reliability,” Tomblin told a news conference at the JPS head office in New Kingston.

Jamaica Public Service Company President and CEO Kelly Tomblin addressing a news conference at the JPS head office in New Kingston yesterday.

“What happens when theft of service occurs. For JPS, it may very well be the death knell. Last year, we were fined by the OUR $30 million, that’s two-and-a-half times our total profit and we again submit that there is no business in Jamaica that can lose two to three million dollars a month and still be viable,” she said, adding that the company is facing bankruptcy as it has broken several covenants with its lenders.

“So for us it has reached a very critical point. This has led to us being in breach of our financial covenants. We have been in breach since last year and we continue to be in breach. What that means is that there is a covenant in our loan agreement with our lenders that said we would maintain a specific EBITDA (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation) to debt ratio and we haven’t met that, and we haven’t met it for a year,” Tomblin said.

She said that the company’s lenders have been granting it waivers, but JPS is not earning enough to meet its debts.

“That is a violation of our agreement, and now we have a lender that has not given us a waiver,” she said.

“So in the US, we call it a financial cliff; we call it a precipice here, but the fact remains that JPS cannot be viable in the current framework.”

Tomblin spoke to the electricity theft issue affecting the sugar estates in an interview with the Jamaica Observer after the news conference.

“It shocks the conscience,” she said, “because if you drive around right now you see it [electricity theft] everywhere. We [Jamaicans] have become very immune to it and I think that is what has gone on here.”

Yesterday’s Observer lead story reported Agriculture Minister Roger Clarke as saying that the Government will have to fork out $200 million to remove illegal connections set up at the sugar plantations.

Disconnecting the illegal connections, Clarke said, was the “only outstanding matter” in negotiations with the new owners of the factories, Pan Caribbean Sugar Company, to invest in a US$100-million sugar refinery.

For years, residents in neighbouring communities were allowed free access to electricity and irrigation water which cost the sugar company $100 million in additional costs annually. The $200 million is being sought to pay for a regularisation programme for the affected communities.

Yesterday, Tomblin did not say whether the regularisation process had started, or if the Government had paid any portion of the regularisation costs.

She, however, bemoaned the debt the Government had incurred for electricity, and said the State will have to pay up if the JPS is to remain viable.

“We certainly have difficulty collecting from the Government, and of course the Government has had its woes,” Tomblin said. “But remember, we bill the Government in Jamaican dollars and we have to pay most of our suppliers, including Petrojam, in US dollars. So the longer they take to pay us, the more detrimental it is to JPS.

“So we really do need to get everyone to be current, and for the Government to repay JPS what it owes us,” she said.

In the meantime, Tomblin said that new measures are to be implemented to detect electricity theft by major organisations which, she said, is harder to detect than those set up by ordinary citizens.

Jamaica Public Service Company President and CEO Kelly Tomblin addressing a news conference at the JPS head office in New Kingston yesterday.

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JPS News

JPS boss establishes Customer Advisory Council

November 26, 2012 jrobinson

Jamaica Public Service (JPS) President and CEO Kelly Tomblin yesterday announced the appointment of a Customer Advisory Council that is expected to give the company valuable feedback from its customers.

“It’s important for us to get different perspectives as we work to improve our service,” Tomblin said. “We need to hear from our customers, get their feedback on our service delivery, and explore with them strategies for service improvement. The Customer Advisory Council will therefore be an important avenue for getting regular input from the people we serve.”

The council comprises representatives from a cross-section of interest groups representing both residential and business customers.

They are:

* Camille Needham, executive director, Jamaica Hotel and Tourist Association;

* Carrole Guntley, director general, Ministry of Tourism and Entertainment;

* Dr Henley Morgan, chairman, Caribbean Applied Technology Ltd;

* Hermine Metcalfe, Association of Retired Persons of Jamaica;

* Michael McMorris, chairman, VMBS;

* Noel DaCosta, board director, Diageo; chairman, United Way of Jamaica;

* Paul Gray, group division manager, energy and engineering, ATL;

* Pat Ramsay, president, International Women’s Forum Jamaica; and

* Winston Hay, former director general, OUR;

The council, JPS said, will meet regularly with the light and power company’s management to discuss its performance, make recommendations, and gauge its improvements and responsiveness.

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JPS News

JPS boss establishes Customer Advisory Council

November 26, 2012 Webmaster

Jamaica Public Service (JPS) President and CEO Kelly Tomblin yesterday announced the appointment of a Customer Advisory Council that is expected to give the company valuable feedback from its customers.

“It’s important for us to get different perspectives as we work to improve our service,” Tomblin said. “We need to hear from our customers, get their feedback on our service delivery, and explore with them strategies for service improvement. The Customer Advisory Council will therefore be an important avenue for getting regular input from the people we serve.”

The council comprises representatives from a cross-section of interest groups representing both residential and business customers.

They are:

* Camille Needham, executive director, Jamaica Hotel and Tourist Association;

* Carrole Guntley, director general, Ministry of Tourism and Entertainment;

* Dr Henley Morgan, chairman, Caribbean Applied Technology Ltd;

* Hermine Metcalfe, Association of Retired Persons of Jamaica;

* Michael McMorris, chairman, VMBS;

* Noel DaCosta, board director, Diageo; chairman, United Way of Jamaica;

* Paul Gray, group division manager, energy and engineering, ATL;

* Pat Ramsay, president, International Women’s Forum Jamaica; and

* Winston Hay, former director general, OUR;

The council, JPS said, will meet regularly with the light and power company’s management to discuss its performance, make recommendations, and gauge its improvements and responsiveness.

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JPS News

JPS staff to ‘walk the line’

November 14, 2012 jrobinson

OFFICE staff at the Jamaica Public Service (JPS) are to be trained to “walk the lines” so they can help the next time a storm or hurricane hits the

JPS News

JPS to start campaign on vegetation control

November 14, 2012 Webmaster

THE Jamaica Public Service (JPS) says it will be rolling out an education campaign as it seeks to partner with communities to manage overhanging vegetation around utility poles.

President of JPS Kelly Tomblin said while the company has always had a vegetation management programme, it will be stepping up its efforts to deal with the problem, which contributed in part to the more than 6,000 poles that fell during the passage of Hurricane Sandy last month.

TOMBLIN… Vegetation management requires a lot of community interaction

“When I first came I contacted some experts on vegetation management to come down to Jamaica and work with our team and start a new vegetation programme a month before the hurricane,” Tomblin told editors and reporters at the Jamaica Observer weekly Monday Exchange held at the newspaper’s head office in Kingston.

Vegetation management, she said, is not only about removing the overhanging trees and shrubs but being able to stump their regrowth through the use of chemicals.

“We have recently made some changes in how we do vegetation control,” Tomblin said. She said vegetation management is particularly challenging in Jamaica because of the remote areas and how plants such as bamboo grow, and as such there is need for another approach.

“Vegetation management requires a lot of community interaction… and so one of the things we hope to have more is community partnership in vegetation control both on individual owner perspective and community,” Tomblin said.

Speaking to the power company‘s handling of the restoration programme across the island in the aftermath of the category one storm, Tomblin said there is a limitation to the appropriate resources the company has at its disposal.

“We all wish we had unlimited resources, and if we did, instead of 80 crews we would have trained and ready to go 200 crews, but that would mean an even greater upward pressure on electric prices because most time we are not having an outage,” Tomblin said.

Given the challenges, Tomblin said the company did well in restoring power to 90 per cent of its customers in four days.

“From my more than two decades being involved in storm restoration, having 90 per cent of customers back in power after a hurricane is a very good solid performance,” she said.

“To get 90 per cent of the people back in four days, I don’t know how much you can improve on that,” she added, noting that there are ways to make significant improvement on the remaining 10 per cent.

She said there is a disconnect in the understanding of what the JPS teams really do go through and what is required.

“If I tell a guy from the United States to take a pole and walk down two miles they would look at me like I have three heads, because they are not going to put that on their back and walk down the hill, but our guys have to do that,” she said.

To date, the JPS said only 2,000 of its 480,000 customers are still without power. For these customers, Tomblin said the workers are having problems accessing the areas because of landslide and other challenges.

The preliminary estimate for the restoration works is said to be in the region of US$7 million, and is expected to climb.

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JPS News

VIDEO: JPS admits running out of options as electricity theft jumps

November 13, 2012 jrobinson

ELECTRICITY theft continues to hit the Jamaica Public Service Company (JPS) hard, amounting to US$32 million so far this year. In fact, so pervasive has been the illegal activity that the company is acknowledging that it is running out of options to stem it.

“It’s at a high rate, and I see it increasing, simply because as electricity rates increase… We have run out of options, we have just run out of options,” Kelly Tomblin, JPS’s president and CEO told the Jamaica Observer Monday Exchange yesterday.

Jamaica Public Service Company (JPS) President and CEO Kelly Tomblin (left) addressing yesterday

JPS News

JPS to be lenient with customers in hurricane-battered parishes

November 13, 2012 Webmaster

THE Jamaica Public Service Company (JPS) says that it is prepared to grant some leniency to its customers, particularly those in Portland, St Thomas and St Mary, who are struggling to recover from the effects of Hurricane Sandy.

The move apparently forms part of efforts by the company to improve its customer service, for which it has received harsh criticisms over the years.

JPS customers in areas like this in Eastern Jamaica which was devastated by Hurricane Sandy last month will benefit from some leniency with bill payments from the light and power company.

Since her arrival in Jamaica earlier this year, the company’s President and Chief Executive Officer Kelly Tomblin made it clear that she intends to reposition JPS by paying attention to its customer service flaws, as she focuses on the company’s bottom line.

Tomblin, who was a guest at yesterday’s Jamaica Observer Monday Exchange, disclosed that instructions have already been given for its parish managers and customer service personnel, particularly in the hard hit areas, to exercise discretion and to work with customers who may not be able to settle their bills in one payment.

“This is an important part of JPS that I am committed to. Our customer service personnel and professionals have some parameters, especially around St Mary, St Thomas that really it has to be on a case-by-case scenario. I have also said to my team, people are going to have hard times, because not only have they lost power, they have lost a lot more and to work with them, we are going to have some discretion to make sure we don’t overburden them,” said the JPS CEO, even as she made it clear that the company will still have to honour its debt obligations to its suppliers, particularly state-owned oil refinery Petrojam from which it purchases fuel.

Tomblin’s pronouncement came less than 24 hours after the company announced that about 20 per cent, or approximately 123,000 customers, would be receiving estimated bills for October as a result of the disruption in its meter-reading schedule.

“JPS 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,” explained Winsome Callum, JPS’s head of corporate communications, who was also a guest at the Monday Exchange.

“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,” Callum added.

Checks by the Jamaica Observer have revealed that the affected customers could actually see an initial increase in their bills as the three-month average will include consumption for the months of July and August which are normally characterised by higher energy consumption.

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JPS News

JPS’s Tomblin Shines Glimmer Of Hope

October 23, 2012 Webmaster

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

JPS News

Good going so far, Mrs Kelly Tomblin

October 9, 2012 Webmaster

WE note with appreciation that Mrs Kelly Tomblin is sticking doggedly to her commitment to transform the Jamaica Public Service Company (JPS) into a more customer-friendly organisation.

Yesterday, the monopoly light and power company that, for decades, has been the subject of much public anger, announced the appointments of 15 parish managers as part of Mrs Tomblin’s promised comprehensive organisational restructuring.

“We are decentralising our operations so that decisions about serving our customers in the parishes no longer need to be made at the head office,” Mrs Tomblin was quoted in a JPS news release. “Our aim is to create a more personal connection with our customers, so we are strengthening our service delivery capabilities at the local level.”

In an apparent move to enhance the change, Mrs Tomblin also appointed three new regional directors who, she said, will have oversight of the company’s regional operations.

One of the encouraging aspects of this strategy is that many of the appointees are new to the company. As such, we expect that they will bring a fresh approach to how the JPS interacts with customers and will, hopefully, contribute immensely to the culture shift that Mrs Tomblin intends to achieve.

Following Mrs Tomblin’s appearance at an Observer Monday Exchange in May this year, shortly after she took the job as president and CEO of the JPS, we had commented in this space that she appears to understand that when in pain, neither customers nor her employees will care about the needs of the JPS until it is clear that the business cares about them.

We also noted that her emphasis on listening, observing and acknowledging, rather than trying to explain or rationalise, reflected a necessary emotional intelligence that appeared to be missing from the company’s former top management.

Based on what we have seen so far, we believe that Mrs Tomblin has brought new and positive energy to the JPS, no pun intended. For in addition to the 15 parish managers and new regional directors, we are aware that she has recruited other talented and highly qualified professionals in order to effect the transformation that the company needs.

It is important, though, for customers to bear in mind that the turnaround that it desires will not take place overnight. For the company has been haemorrhaging from years of customer dissatisfaction that has only been made worse by rising oil prices on the world market that have pushed up, rather painfully, the cost of electricity to customers.

One key to that turnaround, though, is for the JPS to ensure that it maintains a constant dialogue with its customers and, just as important, its staff.

A lot of that responsibility will fall on the shoulders of the parish managers and regional directors who, we suggest, should hold regular discussion sessions with JPS customers in their respective jurisdictions.

Of course, the company will never be able to win over everyone. However, we believe that if the JPS can rebuild enough public trust, it will soften somewhat the anger being aimed at the company because of the volatility in international oil prices.

And any gains made in that area would be multiplied tenfold if the company moves swiftly to introduce cheaper sources of energy.

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