Balford Henry, Senior Staff ReporterNearly four years after The Gleaner revealed that the Jamaica Public Service Company (JPSCo) had overcharged its customers over $2 billion in fuel charges, some customers have not been paid their rebate.
About 204,800 accounts, which have become inactive since then, have still not been reconciled, the Office of Utilities Regulations (OUR) confirmed Friday. The outstanding amount is understood to be about $85 million.
The JPSCo's manager for Government and regulatory affairs, Sam Davis, explained Friday that the information referred to accounts and not customers, because some customers had more than one account.
"We know the names, but they are like inactive bank accounts. For one reason or the other we are unable to locate them. We are having discussions with the OUR on the matter and we are close to finalising a (payment) methodology," he said.
On Friday, the OUR confirmed that a rebate report received from the JPSCo has been sent back to the company in order to clarify several issues.
In the meantime, the OUR has suggested that the company keep the outstanding funds intact until 2007 and issue periodic reminders to the owners of these accounts to collect their outstanding payments.
According to Mr. Davis some of the inactive accounts owed the company. This was due to the fact that some accounts were overpaid.
The OUR said that after the initial rebate exercise, the JPSCo was still indebted to some customers to the tune of $687 million. The company on the other hand had overpaid other customers by approximately $602 million leaving a balance of approximately $85 million.
"The second round of rebates ended August 2001 (but) some customers have not been rebated because they are no longer on the JPSCo's register - approximately 204,844. Active accounts have substantially been paid what is left now is how to deal with inactive accounts," confirmed OUR Communi-cations Manager, David Geddes.
The news broke in late December 1998 that the JPSCo had used its fuel clause to overcharge customers between September, 1993 and then.
The JPSCo said that if it had repaid the money, it would have been forced to increase its rates.
It was also reported that the Government had quietly agreed to let the company keep the refundable amount and use it to pay for electrical capacity provided by three private power companies - Kes Jamaica LP, Jamaica Energy Partners and Jamaica Private Power Company Limited.
Following protests against the action by the Opposition Jamaica Labour Party (JLP), by a decision of Parliament in February 1999, the OUR was given responsibility for validating the rebate to JPSCo customers.
It was agreed that the rebated amount would be $2.9 billion. But in order to relieve the JPSCo of "financial stress" in meeting these obligations, the Minister imposed a special tariff on current customers designed to yield approximately $2.4 billion.
The OUR said that, as the JPSCo did not have information on the entitlement due to each customer and would need time to develop this information, it had decided to make the rebate on the basis of a specific amount credited monthly for each kilowatt-hour consumed by each account over the period February to August 1999, in the first instance.
This method of payment resulted in the JPSCo disbursing a total of $2.8 billion over the period. However, it was realised that the approach was likely to result in some customers being overpaid and some underpaid, based on their actual entitlement and that, as a result, a re-conciliation would be necessary after August 1999.
