Energy Minister Daryl Vaz has said he will be meeting with the management, board and shareholders of the Jamaica Public Service Company (JPS) to discuss the restoration efforts of the company three weeks after the passage and impact of Hurricane Beryl.
Vaz is adamant that the figures relative to restoration that have been provided by JPS are not aligned with what Members of Parliament (MPs) are seeing on the ground in their respective constituencies.
“Let me categorically state that as of this morning (Wednesday) at 9:05, I have already heard from over 20 Members of Parliament overnight into this morning, who are still maintaining that the majority of their constituencies are out of power,” he told a post-Cabinet press briefing.
Based on that information from his colleagues, Vaz said this has led him “to the point of where the information coming out of JPS and what is happening on the ground are at odds.”
He said a way must be found to ensure that all stakeholders are on the same page relative to electricity restoration.
“The longer we go is the harder it gets for those without electricity,” Vaz declared.
Without providing figures, he indicated that there are several National Water Commission (NWC) and National Irrigation Commission (NIC) pumps that are still without power weeks after the category four hurricane impacted the island.
Daryl Vaz
“I will be setting a meeting, for the first time, with not only the management who I’ve been meeting with several times a week, but the complete board of directors and the shareholders, to make sure we are all aligned and, most importantly, that the director and shareholders of the JPS are aware of the situation facing their customers in Jamaica,” Vaz stated.
Amid his dissatisfaction, he commended the JPS for its announcement on Tuesday that it plans to give discounts to approximately 350,000 residential customers.
“… As they say, better late than never. But the fact of the matter is that what they (JPS) did yesterday should have been an automatic response in a crisis of a hurricane. But give credit where credit is due,” Vaz said.
However, he said he will be delving into the value of the concessions and the benefit to customers in general.
The minister said he was “very concerned” about the timelines that have been given by the light and power company for restoration.
He pointed to an online survey he carried out on Sunday, which saw 410 responses from persons who said they were still without power.
In addition, the persons reported that they did not see the names of their communities on the JPS restoration schedules, and they had not seen any JPS presence in their respective communities.
“After three weeks, I state categorically that (that) is unacceptable,” Vaz asserted.
When asked about what accounts for the disparity in the information being supplied by JPS and the parliamentarians, Vaz laid the blame on the information being supplied to the light and power company by its regional arms.
“So, basically what you’re having is the JPS regional management feeding information into the control centre, which is specially activated for disasters, which is fully implemented by JPS as we speak,” he opined.
“So, therefore, there must be a disconnect between the information that is coming into them, which they rely on because they have no other way of verifying it,” Vaz suggested.
As a representative of a rural constituency, Vaz said he can “unequivocally” state that in Portland, what the light and power company has listed as the number of customers and communities that were still disconnected are “absolutely flawed”.
