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Golding: Increase application submitted by the JPS needs to be understood more clearly.
Rayon Dyer, Gleaner Writer
BLACK RIVER, St. Elizabeth:
LEADER OF the Jamaica Labour Party (JLP), Bruce Golding, said the Opposition is not going to sit down and allow the Jamaica Public Service Company (JPS) to trample on the consumers of this country anymore.
Mr. Golding, who was addressing delegates, workers and other supporters of the JLP at a mass meeting at the Black River High School on Friday, lashed out against the 7.5 per cent increase on energy charge that was granted to the JPS, adding that there was no clear justification for the increases which are scheduled to take effect in September and October.
AUTOMATIC INCREASE
"The increase in the price of oil means nothing to the JPS because the increase in oil price is passed on automatically to the consumers in their bills. This means that every time the price of oil goes up, your light bill automatically increases," Mr. Golding explained to the audience.
J. Paul Morgan, director general of the Office of Utilities Regulation (OUR), said last week that the tariff adjustment, which is guaranteed at six and a half per cent applied over a 12-month period, will work out to 7.5 per cent over 10 months.
The Opposition Leader said the rate increase application that was submitted by the JPS needs to be understood more clearly.
He said the party's spokesman on mining, energy and telecommunication, Clive Mullings, was instructed by the party to bring to the meeting of the Shadow Cabinet on Tuesday, a detailed analysis of the rate increase application that had been submitted by the JPS.
MEMORANDUM OF UNDERSTANDING
Turning to the much-talked about Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between the Government and the public sector workers, Mr. Golding, who was on a two-day tour of the constituency of Southwest St. Elizabeth, said the Government of Jamaica has failed the hard-working civil servants of this country.
"The workers of this country have acted in good faith when they signed the MoU, and they were told by the Government that everything would be done to control the rate of inflation and that no additional burden would be put on them (the workers). This has failed and the civil servants are feeling the bitter end of this agreement," Mr. Golding said with an angry tone of voice.
NSWMA SCANDAL
He said he was pleased with the approach so far that the trade union movement has taken to the MoU, despite the fact that the Government has fallen down on its side of the bargain.
Pearnel Charles, Opposition spokesman on transport who also shared the platform with Mr. Golding, said that the National Solid Waste Management Authority scandal was one of the most frightening acts of corruption to have rocked the country under the administration of the People's National Party.
