By Robert Hart, Staff Reporter
Morgan
THE OFFICE of Utilities Regulation (OUR) is set to probe the rebate list being published by the Jamaica Public Service (JPS), after glaring errors were discovered in the catalogue of more than 100,000 customers who are owed nearly $290 million.
The light and power company recently continued its mandated print publication of the names of customers owed money under its five-year-old fuel rebate and reconciliation programme.
However, according to the alphabetical listing of names, from C to M, published last Saturday, among the accounts owed are that of 'Divoli Gardens Junior Secondary School' and the 'Ministry of Griculture Veterinary Cottage'.
The misspelling of the Tivoli Gardens Junior Secondary School and the Ministry of Agriculture have resulted in the accounts being incorrectly located in the D and G sections of the list respectively.
Those and other errors have led to concerns that the list may contain inaccurate data on customers owed money and who may, therefore, not know where to look for their names.
"Yes, we see the issue and we are going to set our staff to look at the list to see if there is any intervention we need to make," J. Paul Morgan, director-general of the OUR, told The Gleaner yesterday.
However, Sam Davis, JPS manager of government and regulatory affairs, said that the company has made every effort to revise the list to ensure that it is as accurate as possible.
"But in a list of 110,000, errors are inevitable," he added, while asking that the public assist in pointing them out. Mr. Morgan announced last year that the OUR had instructed the electricity utility to publish the customer list in April and October each year in hopes of closing the rebate programme by the end of 2005.
In 1999, Parliament decided that JPS should repay $2.9 billion it had overcharged customers under the fuel clause of its tariff from August 1993 to December 1998. Up to last year, the JPS had been able to make the appropriate rebates to all but those customers whose accounts had become inactive.
Many of those customers, the JPS argued, could not be found, despite cross-referenced checks and even if they opened new accounts at the same location.
But, after the first round of advertisements published last year, customers failed to apply for the rebates. Of about 110,000 accounts published, fewer than 3,000 persons claimed less than $2 million.
Yesterday, Mr. Morgan also admitted that it was strange that JPS had not been able to locate a number of public entities on the list, such as the agriculture ministry and five electoral offices in Kingston and across the island.
DELIBERATE
"I don't even want to think that the JPS was doing anything deliberate (back then)," he said, while stressing that the company has come under new management since the initial payouts in 1999. Atlanta-based Mirant bought JPS in 2001.
Contacted about the presence of the electoral offices on the list, Danville Walker, head of the Electoral Office of Jamaica (EOJ) quipped: "All I can say is it's hard to believe they didn't know where we are, but we have no problem going to collect."
The JPS also indicated that its agreement with the OUR now requires that the list be published at least annually for a period of five years, ending in 2008.
