THE Jamaica Public Service Company (JPSCo) is letting go 200 members of staff or about 12.5 per cent of its work force in a programme of voluntary redundancy, which expects to save the light and power suppliers nearly half a billion dollar a year and help return it to profitability, company officials confirmed yesterday.

About 100 employees, at all levels of the company left this month and another 100 are expected to go by June.

“There were no forced separation,” said JPSCo corporate communications manager, Winsome Callum. “Everyone applied, was considered and accepted.”

Callum would not say whether there would be deep cuts into JPSCo’s staff of 1,600 and if the firm would consider forced redundancies.

“The company will continue to review its operations for maximum efficiency,” she said.

JPSCo recently reported a $700-million loss for last year after a profit of $650 million in 2002. It hopes that cuts in labour costs, including benefits, which runs in the region of J$3.5, as well as increased tariffs and efficiency gains will lead the company out of the red.

“The savings from the redundancy programme is estimated to be $490 million annually,” said the JPSCo in a 300-page tariff proposal filed with the regulatory agency, the Office of Utility Regulations (OUR).

“The redundancy programme, however, has one-off costs in the form of redundancy payments,” the company said. “JPS believes that it is appropriate to spread (amortise) these costs over the five-year rate cap period. This has been done by capitalising the redundancy costs and amortising it.”

This month JPSCo asked the OUR to grant a rate increases as high as 18 per cent in charges to customers to help it return to the black.

The company blamed last year’s loss on the impact of the devaluation of the Jamaican dollar on its hard currency denominated liabilities, including a US$120-million debt, relating primarily to the financing of its new 120- megawatt generating plant at Bogue in Montego Bay. Devaluation added J$858 million to its stock of debt last year, the company told the OUR.

It also pointed out that a big chunk of its operating cost was in hard currency and that new international accounting standards, which are in operation here, forced the company to take charges against revenue to fully reflect the impact of the devaluation.

Among the JPSCo’s request to the OUR is for the company to be allowed to reconstitute its billing structure so as to “more accurately reflect” what the company says is the higher US dollar component of its overall cost.

In 2001, when the US-based power company Mirant Corporation bought 80 per cent of JPSCo from the Jamaican Government, 75 per cent of the costs, such as for imported fuel and equipment, was in hard currency.