JAMAICA Labour Party supporters demonstrated in two Jamaican cities and a parish capital yesterday against spiralling electricity bills, but it was apparent that the frustration and anger that sparked the protests had resonance beyond the backers of the Opposition party.

“I am not demonstrating, but I support their sentiments 100 per cent,” said one woman, who gave demonstrators outside the Jamaica Public Service (JPS) offices in Kingston a sly thumbs-up, as she headed for a nearby office.

“JPS is doing a lot of foolishness and is being allowed to get away with it by the OUR (Office of Utilities Regulation),” she said.

As happened at the Kingston demonstration on Knutsford Boulevard in the New Kingston business district, motorists honked their horns in support of the protestors in the northwestern city of Montego Bay and in Mandeville in the island’s central region.

“There was incredible support from the people,” said Mandeville’s deputy mayor and JLP member of the Manchester Parish Council, Sally Porteous. “They were so glad to see that we were doing this. The light bill has gone up astronomically and the people are very upset. They are not sure how they are going to survive.”

Yesterday’s demonstrations followed Wednesday’s decision by the OUR to allow JPS, a subsidiary of America’s Mirant Corporation, to raise its electricity rate by seven Jamaican cents – or one-half of one per cent – per kilowatt hour to pay for damage to its generation and distribution systems suffered during Hurricane Ivan last September.

The increase will raise $457.5 million over a two-year period from October, but that’s a little over a third of the $1.4-billion the light and power company had asked the OUR to allow it to recoup.

JPS said that it was forced into this cash recovery scheme because of its inability to get insurance for its transmission system because of the hurricane threat to the Caribbean region. It, with the blessing of the OUR, started a self-insurance fund last year, financed by a two per cent hike in tariff, but at the time of Ivan it had accumulated only five per cent of the fund’s US$10 million target.

Wednesday’s decision satisfied neither the JPS nor consumers. The company’s boss, Charles Matthews, claimed that the OUR had gone against the recommendations of an independent consultant it hired to assess the claims and that the ruling would hurt the JPS.

On the other hand, consumers, already angered by higher electricity bills fuelled by the increasing price of petrol and a recent three per cent hike in the underlying tariff, saw the increase as another blow. Customers have also been frustrated by increasing outages.

Clive Mullings, the shadow utilities minister, had already threatened to take the issue to court, but said that yesterday’s demonstrations were organised in the face of calls by supporters for a tangible show of disapproval to the JPS.

“People were calling and we decided that we had to do something,” he said. “(We have) …concerns as it relates to the billing methods and practices, as it relates to them damaging our equipment and we are not getting any compensation, while we are underwriting them with a rate increase because of Hurricane Ivan.”

Mullings’ colleague, Andrew Holness, the shadow education minister, said too that his party was also angered by the tone of Matthews’ statement which, he felt, was also most dismissive if not threatening. Matthews had said that the JPS would have to consider its option.

The OUR, too, also faced the ire of consumers and the politicians, who argued that it is ineffective.

“We believe that the OUR is really a spineless regulator,” Holness told the Observer at the Kingston protest.

Placards at the three demonstrations poured scorn and derision on the JPS, the OUR and the government.

At the Montego Bay protest, Pearl Osbourne likened the light and power company to a thief who behaved with impunity. “We want something done about this,” she said.

She called for the intervention of Prime Minister P J Patterson.

At all venues customers complained about increases in their electricity bills that they believe to be unrelated to consumption, a charge that JPS has had to battle for months. In fact, only this week well-known businessman John P Azar placed newspaper ads declaring that he would not pay the bill for one of his companies, King Alarm, until he received an adequate explanation for charges for electricity which he didn’t believe was consumed.

However, Winsome Callum, JPS communications manager, insisted yesterday that the company had been short-changed by the OUR in its latest ruling, even as she empathised with the difficulty faced by consumers.

JPS, Callum said, was faced with the prospect of having to absorb nearly $1 billion for repairs and the opportunity cost of money.

“It has implications for the viability of the process, the viability of the company and the company’s efforts to improve service,” she said. “This is a capital intensive business. It cost a significant amount to continually improve the service and that is absolutely necessary to keep it at a standard.”

She repeated the company’s earlier statement of “considering our options”.

“We are going to go through the document and we are going to thoroughly examine the ruling and then make a determination,” Callum said.

However, the JLP’s Holness argued that the company was not only failing to live up to performance standards, thus breaching its operating licence, but was “asking too much”.

“JPS can’t expect to be insured against every possible risk,” he said.

– Reporters Taneisha Davidson and Petre Williams contributed to this story.