Letter of the Day - JPSCo's public contempt

THE EDITOR, Sir:

WHEN JPSCO was government-owned, power cuts such as we have been experiencing would have evoked great public outcry. We would have demanded of the Government definitive answers as to the cause of the problem, what was being done about it and how quickly we should expect to return to normality.

The new owners of JPSCo obviously recognise no such obligation. What has virtually become a national crisis is being treated as a routine disruption to be dealt with routinely. Apart from occasional releases giving deadlines that invariably have not been met, all we are told is the daily listing of blocks that are likely to be load-shedded. The daily recitation of these blocks seem to me to cover almost the entire island. We have no way of evaluating the efforts that it claims to be making to restore adequate supply. We have no way of holding anyone accountable.

The OUR which has statutory responsibility to protect the public interest is apparently suffering a permanent power cut and seems to have sufficient energy only to seek information.

The Minister of Mining and Energy may as well have Energy deleted from his portfolio. JPSCo is not merely one of a number of assets divested by the government. If a hotel that has been divested subsequently falters, it is primarily the purchasers who suffer. It does not impact on the everyday life of every Jamaican citizen.

When we divested JPSCo we did not divest the public's entitlement to a reliable electricity supply nor to the respect to which it is entitled from a utility that enjoys privileged, protected dominance. The new JPSCo has treated the Jamaican people with utter contempt.

I am etc.,

BRUCE GOLDING

brucegolding@yahoo.com

Kingston 6

Via Go-Jamaica

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