SECTOR leaders yesterday blasted the Jamaica Public Service Company (JPS) and the Office of Utilities Regulation (OUR) over new increases in electricity rates and rubbished Energy Minister James Robertson’s announcement that despite the hike, consumers will see a reduction in their electricity bills in the coming weeks.

Jamaica Manufacturers’Association President Omar

Azan was particularly harsh on Robertson who he said had not

done a “damn thing” policywise to protect taxpayers and should be cashiered if he could not do his job.

“Everything in Jamaica is on the table and is being studied and if the minister of energy is not going to do his job then we need to get rid of him and find somebody who will work, because guess what, it’s the taxpayers of this country who are paying his salary for them to start turning this country around rather than sitting and doing studies,” Azan fumed.

“We are sick and tired of all of them — from the previous Government to the current Government,” he added. “We are tired of all of them because they are not doing anything… I tell you, the private sector and the people of this country are sick of all of them.”

Between late Friday and yesterday, the JPS and Robertson issued news releases saying that the OUR had approved the light and power company’s application for an annual inflation adjustment to the non-fuel base electricity rates in keeping with the JPS’2001 licence.

While the JPS did not state the percentage increase, Robertson, in his release — which was sent to the Sunday Observer by Generation 2000 President Delano Seiveright — said that the adjustment amounted to 1.9 per cent.

However, a Sunday Observer calculation found that the increases will amount to 3.6 per cent for residential customers and up to 4.6 per cent for commercial users.

But both the JPS and Robertson argued that reductions in fuel prices and the revaluation of the Jamaican dollar would cancel out the electricity rate increase.

“The inflation adjustment is expected to be offset by

decreases in fuel charges and the revaluation of the Jamaican dollar against its United States counterpart,” said the JPS. “When combined, the inflation adjustment, the lower fuel charges and foreign-exchange rates are expected to result in a decrease of about 1.34 per cent on the bill of a typical residential customer using 200kWh per month.”

Added JPS: “A typical large commercial customer would see

a reduction of approximately 2.35 per cent on his July bill,

compared to bills received in June. June’s invoices will also reflect a modest decrease relative to May.”

But yesterday, Azan rubbished the claim that consumers will benefit, and even so, he said that the benefit would not be lasting.

“It is only a way of keeping the country quiet for a while. Once the dollar starts to trend upwards again then you are going to see the cost of electricity go up,” said Azan.

“They take people in this country for a set of idiots, but we are not all idiots, and we are going to start straightening it out once and for all.”

The Government, he said, needed to start looking after and protecting the people.

“Mr Robertson is our minister of energy and he’s put

there to work and secure our people in terms of energy

prices so that we are able to compete and he hasn’t done a

thing,” said Azan. “You name me one thing he has done in

that ministry? Not a damn thing. He needs to start working now.”

He also said that head of the OUR should be sacked as it was not prudent to be granting price increases when

businesses are recording decreases in sales, some up to 50 per cent.

Azan’s anger was shared by Jamaica Hotel and Tourist Association President Wayne Cummings who said he was at a loss as to what may have caused the OUR to approve the increase since the price of oil, which constitutes a major part of the JPS’ expenditure, has fallen and the US dollar has seen a downward spiral in recent days. Added to that, Cummings pointed to what he described as the exorbitant profit” made by the JPS in the first quarter of this year.

The company had reported net after-tax earnings of US$9.4 million ($841 million) for the quarter ending March 2010.

“I believe that the absolute inefficiencies of the Jamaica Public Service and the fact that they have been granted successive increases time, after time, after time is a slap in the face of consumers and the commercial

sector,” said Cummings. “I can’t see what in heaven’s name would have predicated this approval at this time.”

Added Cummings: “I’m putting this squarely on the OUR. The OUR seems, in our opinion, to be working for the Jamaica Public Service and not for the consumers of this country. The OUR is a creature of Parliament, a creature of Government and it’s time now for Government to look at what it is that it wants to grow. Does it want to grow the [JPS] or it wants to grow the productive sector?”

Cummings also called on the State to revamp whatever measure the OUR uses as a guide in determining whether or not to grant an increase.

Meanwhile, both Joseph M Matalon, the Private Sector Organisation of Jamaica president, and Milton Samuda, the president of the Jamaica Chamber of Commerce, have called on the Government to forge ahead with the introduction of alternative energy and break the JPS’monopoly on the market — steps, they said, that would solve the country’s energy problem in the long run.

“Any increase is going to be unwelcome, but it’s time we stop looking at the short term and look at long-term solutions,” Samuda said.

Minister Robertson did not reply to Sunday Observer messages for a comment on the

issue but was quoted in a release from the Jamaica Information Service yesterday as saying that his ministry was pressing ahead with the diversification of fuel sources.

“The Ministry of Energy and Mining is actively on course to diversify Jamaica’s fuel source to include Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) in a bid to reduce energy costs before the next rate adjustment is due,” the release quoted Robertson.

Under the 2001 license, the JPS is entitled to a rate

adjustment every five years, with the next one due in 2014.