THE Jamaica Public Service Company (JPSCo), the monopoly light and power company, lost US$20 million to electricity thieves last year, and much of that was passed on to consumers, the company admitted.

And the company uncharacteristically drew attention to the problems it was having with uptown offenders who have rarely been fingered for their theft of electricity, which has forced a renewed crackdown islandwide by the JPSCo.

“The methods used to steal energy vary,” said Michael Moss, chief technical officer for the JPSCo. “While the throw-up method is very visible and prevalent in some lower-income urban communities, there are more sophisticated methods, used mainly by the upper classes, that may include internal collusion, meter-tampering and energy diversions”.

Moss, in an interview with the Sunday Observer, said that one “big energy thief” could steal more electricity than a hundred small ones. As a result, the JPSCo is now auditing customers who have large accounts which were “moving down”.

Moss also acknowledged that some amount of the cost of electricity theft, up to 15 per cent, was passed on to the consumer, a disclosure which is likely to incense consumer rights groups.

The JPSCo official said that in its islandwide crackdown on illegal electricity users, the company was intent on identifying, arresting and prosecuting persons guilty of illegal connections, regardless of their social status.

“Only last month we had a supermarket owner arrested for stealing electricity,” Moss said, adding that the female merchant was first warned for making an illegal connection and then arrested after she continued to flaunt the law. Moss did not identify the supermarket proprietor.

He also pointed out that there were instances of metered customers engaging in energy theft, but paying their metered charges as a kind of camouflage to their felony. The audit was largely aimed at those.

“These audits include checks on the internal billing and data systems as well as on-site visits with commercial and industrial customers to check on instruments and assess energy usage”, Moss said. He added that substation revenue metering and billing information were being used to identify high-energy loss zones and to deploy revenue protection investigators in targeted areas.

The company’s approach to the reduction of “non-technical energy losses”, a euphemism for electricity theft, tackles two main categories: users without a contract with the company, and legitimate customers who divert energy.

Moss said that in some cases the problem was compounded by the socio-economic and political conditions of the users. He stated that “there has evolved an entrenched expectation in some communities that electricity should be a free commodity”. He stated that the condition is exacerbated by inadequacies in the enforcement mechanisms, such as the company’s inability to disconnect the illegal users on a sustainable basis.

“The company’s experience,” Moss explained, “is that in many cases, as soon as the illegal wires are removed, new wires are replaced by the perpetrators.” He noted also that violence in some communities, as experienced in Majesty Gardens in Kingston and Flankers in Montego Bay, had been preventing the company from adequately addressing the problem.

But the JPSCo is intent on reducing its losses to more acceptable levels and has stepped up its programme of systematic and sustained raids to remove illegal connections in communities, with the assistance of the police. Over the past year, more than 120 persons had been arrested and charged for illegal use of electricity with fines imposed during that period ranging from $7,000 to $100,000.

At another level, the JPSCo is also employing what corporate communications manager Winsome Callum calls “a people-friendly approach in assisting illegal users to become legitimate customers through conditional contracts and other measures”.

Callum told the Sunday Observer that the company’s public education programme was taking a proactive approach by forging relationships with developers and agencies responsible for social and low-income housing development.

“Another important aspect of the public education programme,” Callum said, “involves creating an awareness of the dangers that electricity theft poses to life and property”. She bemoaned the fact that many fatalities, including the death of young children, had occurred from accidental contact with ‘throw-up’ connections.

Moss also pointed to the numerous fires at residential, commercial and industrial sites that had resulted from illegal connections.

In addition to the crackdown, the JPSCo has been proactive in employing community relations representatives who have been meeting with schools, church groups, and addressing community meetings to inform the public on the benefits of being legal customers and on the risks involved with illegal connections.

Moss and Callum expressed confidence that the combined efforts of public education and ongoing electricity theft prevention measures would result in a significant reduction in JPSCo losses that would bring eventual benefits to both the company and its customers.