Winston Hay (centre), Director General of the Office of Utilities Regulation, makes a point at yesterday's press conference. With him are deputy directors J. Paul Morgan (left) and Courtney Jackson. - Norman Grindley THE OFFICE of Utility Regulation (OUR) has determined that negligence at the Jamaica Public Service Company Limited (JPSCo) led to the October 24 islandwide blackout but says its hands are tied in terms of applying sanctions.
The OUR will release its report on the blackout on Thursday, coupled with a memorandum to the JPSCo requiring the electricity utility to improve its operating system. But any sanctions against the JPSCo will have to be addressed at the time of a request for a tariff adjustment and not under the Guaranteed Standards which carry compensatory sanctions.
OUR deputy director general J. Paul Morgan told a press briefing at the agency's Trafalgar Road head office in Kingston yesterday, that they were concerned about the reasons offered by the JPSCo for the blackout.
"It is concluding that there was an error of judgment on the part of the JPSCo employee who would have closed a particular circuit breaker, when in truth and in fact that breaker would not have been capable of tripping again to clear the fault which ensued," Mr. Morgan said about the report.
He said that it was a matter which the OUR would have to take up with the JPSCo, "because it does raise some questions about their operating and commissioning procedures".
Minister of Mining and Energy Anthony Hylton told Parliament on November 27 that the company's Citizen's Charter guaranteed a certain level of performance, failure to observe this could lead to compensatory payments to customers, as well as being subject to claims for damage to equipment. He said too that if the JPSCo failed to meet certain standards, this could be taken into account at the time of tariff adjustments.
But Mr. Morgan said yesterday, "The licence which JPSCo currently has does not provide the OUR with the power to order any compensation for any losses or things like this."
He said that the tariff mechanism set up in the licence had a provision for performance based sanctions, under which the OUR can take into account the performance of the company and factor it into the rewards or penalties associated with a request for a rate increase.
He said that, in the meantime, the OUR had the power to issue memoranda to the company to effect certain changes, "when we feel that they have not acted in accordance with the intent of the licence and in this particular instance, we will be issuing to the company a memorandum, as is allowed for under the OUR Act, to take certain actions which we hope will ensure, or try to ensure, that a similar situation does not recur."
