AS the Rural Electrification Programme (REP) carries out its mandate to provide 100 per cent access to electricity island wide, the programme has, since its incorporation in 1975, constructed more than 5,000 kilometres of pole lines and wired some 66,000 households.

Chief engineer of the REP Samuel Marshall told JIS News that in the 1970s only some 50 per cent of the population had access to electricity and today, approximately 92 per cent of citizens have access, with the REP accounting for some 12 per cent of the Jamaica Public Service’s JPS) customer base.

During the 2004/05 fiscal year, the programme completed two major projects. Under the revolving fund ‘M’ project a total of 1,325 houses were wired while under the Government of Jamaica 2003/04 project, 638 houses were wired and 35 kilometres of electrical pole lines installed.

The revolving fund ‘M’ project focused on a total of 60 different areas throughout all parishes. “When we do our projects, we try to have it as equitably distributed throughout the island as possible. At any one point in time, any project will have some representation from each parish in terms of areas that will be benefiting from the programme,” Marshall said.

Project execution is usually done through contractors “because what we need are specialised skills to do those works, so we have to contract the house wiring to electricians or the construction of the lines to electrical contractors”, he said.

The chief engineer said that while there were always numerous requests from communities selected based on certain criteria. “For example, the number of houses per kilometre of extension…before we construct a line, we have to have at least 15 houses along that route length per kilometre that would require house wiring assistance from REP, for which the new construction would provide access to electricity,” he said.

The programme, he said, also examined the rate of growth in the area and the general income level, and the ability of the residents in the area to pay based on the level of economic activity.

The proximity of the existing power distribution facilities to the area was also a factor. “Our biggest hurdle is funding because these exercises are normally very expensive…to construct one kilometre of pole line, costs over $1 million,” Marshall said.

According to the 2002 Jamaica Survey of Living Conditions, there has been a 28.8 per cent increase in the proportion of the population using electricity for lighting purposes over the last 10 years, and a 67 per cent decline in the size of the population using kerosene over the same period.

The report said electricity was used by 94.3 per cent of the households in the Kingston Metropolitan Area (KMA) with a similarly high level of access for households in other towns (92.4 per cent) and 80.9 for rural areas.