By Robert Hart, Staff ReporterTHE JAMAICA Public Service Company (JPS) has failed to meet an April deadline to continue publishing the names of customers still owed money under its $3-billion fuel rebate and reconciliation programme.
On Tuesday, Winsome Callum, communications manager at the JPS, told The Gleaner that the light and power company would restart publication of its list of customers owed, "some time later this year".
But J. Paul Morgan, director-general of the Office of Utilities Regulation (OUR), said he would be contacting the JPS to discuss its facilitation of the exercise ordered by his agency just over a year ago.
NAMES ORDERED PUBLISHED
In April 2003 the OUR instructed the JPS to have published, in the print media, the names and account numbers of customers to whom the remainder of the multi-billion dollar rebate was due. These advertisements, the OUR had stated, were to appear in April and October of each year (until 2005) and were to provide information on the process to claim and recover the amounts payable.
The move came on the announcement that the JPS still owed customers about $290 million after a 1999 decision by Parliament that the company should repay $2.9 billion it overcharged customers under the fuel clause of the tariff during the period August 1993 to December 1998. The OUR was subsequently mandated to validate the rebate to customers.
Aafter publishing the more than 100,000 customer accounts between May and July last year, the JPS failed to repeat the process as required in October. Neither did the company publish the accounts last month.
"They (JPS) ought to be complying with the directive," Mr. Morgan told The Gleaner Tuesday. He noted though, that the OUR had been advised that the response to the customer account publication had not been as strong as expected and that the cost of advertising the 110,000 customer accounts had itself been a multi-million dollar venture.
Shortly after the advertising campaign to reimburse the remaining customer accounts got underway last year, a preliminary report indicated that only 1,891 applications had been received.
But despite the lacklustre customer interest, Mr. Morgan maintained that the exercise should be continued. "I think they are duty bound and should publish the list at least one more time," he said.
