JAMAICA’S parish councils could pay as much as $340 million to the Jamaica Public Service (JPS) this year for thousands of streetlights that are not working.

However, the Association of Local Government Authority (ALGA) is hoping to broker an agreement with the light and power company soon to alter the arrangement and pay only for those which are working.

The Department of Local Government in the Office of the Prime Minister is projecting to spend at least $1.7 billion on JPS bills in 2009, having forked out between $132 and $148 million for each of the past 10 months to pay for the island’s 96,500 streetlights – of which an estimated 15 to 20 per cent have been out.

More than 30,000 or almost a third of the island’s streetlamps are installed in Kingston and St Andrew alone, but the problem of malfunctioning and out-of-order lights are concentrated in rural areas.

While a breakdown by parish was not immediately available, the Observer was told that the problem range from a low of nine per cent in St Elizabeth to a high of 36 per cent of the streetlights in St Mary.

“So you see the 20 per cent is really the islandwide average,” a source told the Observer.

Calvert Thomas, director of revenue enhancement and resource mobilisation in the Local Government Department, said under the current arrangement with the light and power company – as stipulated by the Office of Utilities Regulation (OUR) – even lights that are not in working order must be paid for by the parish councils.

“The OUR… would have granted (the JPS) certain approval (to its) Tariff Rate Structure (which) requires that all streetlights, whether or not they are working, must be paid for by the council at a set rate,” Thomas explained. He said that the last bill paid by the department “was in the region of $148 million”.

According to the OUR, “streetlights installed by the JPS are paid for by the councils on a per light basis because the lights are not metered.”

In the meantime, Ruthlyn Johnson – corporate communication officer at the JPS – would only divulge that parish councils are “billed for streetlights” and that the “JPS has an ongoing maintenance programme to repair streetlights that are reported as non-functional.”

But ALGA’s president and Mayor of May Pen, Milton Brown said his association is hoping to have an agreement with JPS by January that would see the councils being compensated for non-functional lights which are not repaired in a timely manner.

“Simply put, we will only pay for what we get,” Brown told the Observer yesterday.

“Right now we are billed depending on wattage and we are paying for 12 hours per day, every day. That is costing us an arm and a leg!” he said.

Mayor Brown said in Clarendon alone, an estimated 20 per cent of the parish’s streetlights are out.

“We have been having this problem over an extended period. Two years ago we did a 100-per-cent check, that is, we made a database of all lights… checked every one in the parish. At that time 25 per cent were not functioning,” he explained, admitting that the situation has slightly improved since then.

“We are getting quicker responses now to repairs. But we still have a number of lights not working.. about 20 per cent,” he explained..

But his colleague in Spanish Town, Dr Andrew Wheatley, complained that the JPS patrol team which is charged with addressing non-functioning lights in his area was “apparently invisible”.

“About 20 per cent of our lights not working. I don’t want to say the JPS is dragging its feet and I must admit that we have seen some improvements over the past six months, but I am not pleased,” he said.

“That’s why we are working out the agreement with them to ensure that a more efficient system is in place,” said Dr Wheatley, a vice-president of the ALGA.

Mayor Brenda Ramsay, chairman of the Manchester Parish Council, estimates that approximately 15 per cent of the parishes streetlights are not working, but said the problem was not entirely the fault of the JPS.

“People do steal the lamps and sell them to developers or put them into other areas. This is something we have been discussing with the JPS,” she said.

However, things are brighter in the Corporate Area.

“I have to be honest, in terms of what it was three to four years ago, there has been tremendous improvement, but there are weaknesses in some areas,” Kingston Mayor Desmond McKenzie told the Observer.

“There challenges in some areas, for example where people (deliberately) put them out and there are some (streetlights) which don’t seem to be able to be corrected, but the JPS’ response to our concerns whenever it is brought to their attention (is commendable),” he said.