WESTERN BUREAU — The Jamaica Public Service Company last week established a revenue protection division in Montego Bay that is geared at eradicating electricity theft in the resort city and the rest of western Jamaica, in addition to communities in St Ann.

The move comes in the wake of the utility company’s announcement earlier this year that it had lost about US$20 million to electricity thieves last year. It is also a part of the company’s islandwide thrust to eradicate illegal connections and reduce the financial losses to the company.

The RPD in Montego Bay, located at the JPSCo’s Baywest office, is in addition to two others located in Kingston and Mandeville.

Meanwhile, an estimated 20 per cent of the US$20 million in electricity theft last year — much of which was passed to legitimate customers — was due to illegal connections inside western Jamaica, said Major George Kates, the JPSCo’s general manager of asset protection.

“I would estimate, based on what I’ve personally seen, that at least 20 per cent of it is in region three (Hanover, St Ann, St James, Trelawny and Westmoreland). The areas of highest incidence is Kingston and St Andrew, St Catherine and Montego Bay,” Kates, a retired army officer, told the Observer last week. “So we set up (a RPD) in Montego Bay to deal with western Jamaica because we have a very high incidence of illegal connections here,” he added.

At the same time, he said, the JPSCo, with the assistance of the police, has vowed to go all out to eradicate such connections.

“Every single community that has illegal connections will be touched. We have the backing from the company and we have the requisite resources. It is one of the major focus right now of the JPSCo to deal with all these illegal connections,” the Kates said. “We are going to be bold and resolute in our efforts to get rid of illegal connections and we will not be deterred. (Plus) we don’t just pull down and leave. We go back to ensure that people do not hook up again. And we will continue to do it until we are satisfied that everybody has come in and regularised,” he added.

Already they seem to be making progress as a number of people have gone into their offices to become legitimate customers.

“We have done raids so are in Pitfour and Retirement and it will be a weekly thing… We have removed hundreds of illegal connections to people’s houses,” he said. “And subsequent to that several persons who actually had their houses properly wired (but) who were eventually stealing light came in to regularise their service,” he added.

Kates has in the interim explained that getting rid of illegal connections was critical to ensuring quality service to legitimate customers and to help prevent a loss of life and or property.

“Based on the loading in certain areas, illegal connections impede people with legitimate connections… When you have all these illegal connections it causes disturbances in the supply, (such as) fluctuations and low voltage as a result of too many people using that little electricity meant for this set of people,” he explained. “Too, a lot of illegal connections can lead to damage of equipment and it can also lead to death. There have been several incidents of people being electrocuted because people run wire all over the place. You can just be walking in the bushes and you step on a live wire. So there have been several cases of electrocution both in the houses and sometimes, just people walking in the field and so on…” he added.