THE JAMAICA Public Service Co. Ltd. will, from tomorrow, begin publishing the names of persons to whom more than $290 million in rebate payments are due.
The action forms part of an agreement between the light and power utility and the Office of Utilities Regulation (OUR), to bring the four-year-old fuel rebate reconciliation to a close.
100,000 ACCOUNT HOLDERS
According to Winsome Callum, the JPSCo's corporate communications manager, the list of more than 100,000 account holders will be published in alphabetical order each Thursday in The Gleaner, during a nine-week period.
"Approximately 80,000 of these accounts are due rebates of less than $500 each, while just over 2,000 accounts are owed $5,000 or more," she told The Gleaner last night.
The refunds will be credited to the accounts of customers with active accounts. Customers without active electricity accounts will be refunded by cheque through the mail.
Explaining the process for making claims, Ms. Callum said that "persons whose names appear in the list are asked to complete the 'Application for Rebate Refund' form available at JPSCo Customer Service Offices" islandwide. However, a customer's current indebtedness to the JPSCo would be taken into account in making payments.
In April, the OUR instructed the JPSCo to have published, in the print media, the names and account numbers of customers to whom the rebate is due. These advertisements, the OUR stated, are to appear in April and October of each year and must provide information on the process to claim and recover the amounts payable.
OVERCHARGED CUSTOMERS
In 1999, a decision was made by Parliament that the JPSCo should repay $2.9 billion it had overcharged customers under the fuel clause of its tariff from August 1993 to December 1998. The OUR was subsequently mandated to validate the rebate to customers.
After the initial rebate payments were completed between February and August of 1999, an audit conducted by the light and power company's independent auditors, and reviewed by the OUR, showed that 356,483 accounts had been under-credited to the tune of $687.07 million. It was also discovered that another 323,555 accounts had collectively been rebated a total of $601.64 million more than they should have been paid.
However, since then, the JPSCo has been able to make the appropriate rebates to all but those customers whose accounts had become inactive. With the implementation of the latest measures to locate the remaining customers, the OUR has given the JPSCo until the end of 2005 to honour bona fide claims.
