WESTERN BUREAU — A US$1.82-million expansion of the rural electrification programme (REP), which is slated to get underway on Friday, is expected to benefit approximately 5,000 households in rural Jamaica.

“In this year alone, the REP will construct over 150 kilometres of new lines and wire approximately 5,000 houses,” energy minister Anthony Hylton said Tuesday. “This expansion will be funded under Phase C of the Caribbean Development Bank’s programme V,” he told guests at the groundbreaking ceremony for expansion work being carried out at the Jamaica Public Service Company’s Bogue Plant in Montego Bay.

Said the minister: “This phase of the programme will start on February 1 at a cost of US$1.82 million. This will be supplemented by the commencement of a revolving fund of J$25 million.”

According to general manager of the REP, Keith Garvey, the construction phase, which will include an expansion of the existing grid system, will take about six months and the wiring of the individual homes will take another three months.

The work will cover roughly 90 miles of lines, and has been fielded out to 10 different contractors. They will all begin working, in every parish outside of Kingston, on Friday.

Meanwhile, Garvey said that consumers would realise significant savings in the connection fee.

“On average, it costs about $13,000 per house to wire the houses and what they do is they pay 10 per cent of that on signing the contract and then they pay the remainder over a 48-month period at no interest charge,” he said.

“If these same people were going by the commercial rate, if they were to get an electrician on the road, it would be about three to four times more. But we managed to negotiate an excellent rate for them with the contractors because we offer the contractors volume work.”

Under the REP’s arrangement, these new customers will pay a monthly fee for the electricity used, plus roughly $280 per month — over a four-year period — for the connection fee.

According to minister Hylton, since its inception in 1975, the REP has wired about 52,500 houses and built roughly 4,600 kilometres of power lines, benefitting more than 300,000 persons outside of the Kingston Metropolitan Area.

Hylton also announced that street lighting would be addressed under the current energy expansion drive.

“At this point in time, we have about 76,000 street lights in Jamaica. I am aware that many of these are not working,” the minister said. “I am pleased to note that in addition to bringing these street lights back into operation, in 2002, JPSCo has indicated that it would be able to install about 7,600 new street lights throughout the island with a particular emphasis on rural Jamaica.”

The local government ministry, through the island’s parish councils, is now identifying the sites where the lights are to be placed.