POUND HILL, St Elizabeth – SCORES of residents in this and several other communities in the constituency of North East St Elizabeth are calling on their member of parliament Kern Spencer to keep his 2007 election trail promise to provide them with electricity.

“We need the electricity badly. From Mr Spencer came down here and promise us the light when he was campaigning in early 2007, we don’t see him again, nor get any light,” said Anthonio Richards, the vice-president of the Pound Hill Citizens Association.

Richards, who has been living in the community for almost 10 years, said the residents have now become frustrated.

Efforts to contact Spencer — who was last year slapped with multiple charges of conspiracy to defraud, money laundering and breaches of the Corruption Prevention Act in connection with the Cuban light bulb project — were unsuccessful.

Almost three years ago, Spencer — who was then the junior minister of Commerce, Science, Energy and Technology — told the Observer West that more than 400 households in several communities, including Pound Hill, would get electricity under the Rural Electricity Programme (REF) by August 2007.

“The relevant assessments are now being done in the communities as it relates to population density, and so the households should get electricity by August,” Spencer said then.

At that time Spencer, who was seeking to represent the constituency on the People’s National Party’s ticket, said the communities to benefit include Content, Bogue, Sevens Corner and Pepper.

But up to yesterday none of those communities, residents say, have received the commodity.

Pointing to the inconvenience being experienced by Pound Hill residents, Elmore Dixon — who has been living in the community for three years — said the situation has become unbearable.

“We can’t iron our clothes, our children can’t get to watch the television; we can’t get to store food properly. It’s really frustrating,” she told the Observer West during a tour of the community on Tuesday.

She noted that in 2006, prior to Spencer’s election promise, the Jamaica Public Service gave them an estimate for roughly $1.6 million for the provision of electricity in the area. But this, she said, was too costly.

“We were unable to accept the JPS proposal because we just could not afford it, seeing that most of the citizens are small-scale farmers and small business people,” she explained.

Last December, the citizens’ association wrote to Prime Minister Bruce Golding advising him of their plight.

But Richards said they are yet to get a response from him.

The Jamaica Social Investment Fund, Richards said, has also been approached but they too are yet to respond to their request.

Pound Hill, also known as Pound Heights, is located in the district of Longwood on the outskirts of Santa Cruz.

Just over 300 households are in the community which is also without piped water and lacks proper road infrastructure.

A handful of residents in the small district say however that they have managed to access an unreliable supply of electricity by running high-tension wires to the home of residents in adjoining communities — almost a quarter of a mile away.