We share the outrage at the just-approved increase in electricity rates expressed in the Sunday Observer by Mr Omar Azan, the president of the Jamaica Manufacturers’ Association, and Mr Wayne Cummings, the president of the Jamaica Hotel and Tourist Association.

The increase, granted late last week by the Office of Utilities Regulation (OUR) to the monopoly Jamaica Public Service Company (JPS), smacks of a callous disregard for the welfare of the Jamaican people who are already burdened by the effects of the global financial crisis, made even more weighty by the questionable fiscal policies of the previous Government for which we are still paying a heavy price.

In fact, it was the previous Government that, in 2001, guaranteed the JPS an increase in electricity rates every five years and the right to apply for an inflation adjustment every year.

It was an oppressive decision that displayed nothing but contempt for Jamaicans and allowed the JPS to rely on those increases rather than address its inefficiencies.

We expect that the company will, if it chooses to respond to this editorial, point to the technology it has acquired and installed to reduce electricity theft. It will also likely highlight other measures it has taken to improve service and increase its capacity to generate adequate power to meet the country’s needs.

However, we cannot agree that a company that reported net after-tax earnings of US$9.4 million ($841 million) for the quarter ending March 2010, deserves an increase in electricity rates at this time, especially with the blow the economy is now suffering from the fallout brought on by the civil unrest in West Kingston last month.

The argument used by the JPS and Energy Minister James Robertson that lower fuel charges and the strengthening of the Jamaican dollar against its US counterpart would result in a decrease of about 1.34 per cent on the bill of a typical residential customer using 200kWh per month is pure balderdash.

If anything, those two developments, we submit, should give the OUR reason not to grant an increase, as the opposite obtained in January 2001 when the OUR cited slippage of the Jamaican dollar as one of the reasons for granting electricity rate increases as high as 9.8 per cent for residential customers.

Perhaps, had the JPS not enjoyed monopoly status, we could look forward to the market regulating prices based on demand. But this is not the case. Moreover, we don’t see any signal that the JPS will refuse the increase, even out of enlightened self-interest.

Therefore, the Jamaican Government, which still holds a 20 per cent stake in JPS, needs to take a serious look at the company’s efficiency with a view to implementing measures that are necessary to ensure profitability for the company without this heavy burden on taxpayers.

We would also suggest that the iniquitous guaranteed return clause in the JPS’ licence be reviewed as it rewards complacency and is extremely unfair to the company’s paying customers, who, we all know, are being charged for the losses incurred by the JPS’ inability to collect from those who illegally benefit from the service.

The Government would also do well to stop twiddling its thumbs on this issue of alternative energy. For just as happened during the tenure of the previous Government, we have all grown tired of the talk.