THE Senate on Friday flayed the Jamaica Public Service (JPS) over high electricity bills being levied on its customers, including government senator Hyacinth Bennett, whose domestic charges for the months of May and June this year amounted to over $163,000.

In a scene highly reminiscent of less loftily positioned protesters in recent months, who have lambasted the utility company for their high light bills, Senator Bennett and several of her colleagues on both sides of the parliamentary chamber took on the power monopoly.

She brandished both bills and offered scathing criticism of the company’s ‘exorbitant’ energy costs in support of a motion brought to the Upper House by government senator Dennis Meadows for this monopoly to be broken.

The first bill, for $82,152, covered the month of May, and became due on June 13, 2011. The second, which covered the month of June, was only a few hundred dollars less, amounting to $81,767. It becomes payable on July 12, 2011.

Senator Bennett later told reporters that her house was “no mansion”, but a basic four-bedroom house, with basic amenities, and a limited number of residents. “It’s not even a sprawling four-bedroom house… nothing that would cause that kind of bill,” she said.

“I do not believe that the call for justice in this country should be left solely to placard-bearing souls in a number of our communities. Rather, the call for justice ought to penetrate the walls and halls of the JPSCo… despite the thinly veiled flurry of public relations activities which began a day or two ago, accompanied by the promise of a gift of lower electricity,” she said.

Senator Bennett’s experience epitomises that of an increasing number of Jamaican householders and business people, who have decried the high power costs charged by JPS. Consumers like Senator Bennett have complained that costs have been rising steadily over the last several months, despite the Jamaican dollar strengthening against its United States counterpart.

Meanwhile, Meadows, who had originally moved the motion for the Senate to push for the JPS monopoly to be broken, said Jamaica’s energy costs remain the highest in the Caribbean — at US $0.32 cents per kilowatt, as opposed to Trinidad and Tobago, this country’s biggest regional trading partners — at US$ 0.05 cents.

He said a World Bank report released a few weeks ago lists Jamaica’s high energy cost as a constraint to growth. He called on the Government to enact legislation which would separate the transmission and distribution of electricity from its generation.

“In a modern economy that hungers for vibrancy and transparency, no single entity, like JPS, should own both. We need legislation that will liberalise the power sector for independent new players… the prospect of growth in the Jamaican economy is being stifled by the strangulation of an electricity monopoly,” he said.

Noting that many Jamaicans view the JPSCo as “excessively exploitative and predatory”, Senator Meadows said “the company often demonstrates a ‘take it or leave it’ approach to customer service and approaches its revenue collection insensitively, regardless of circumstances”.

“Too often I receive complaints from constituents whose service was disconnected after making part-payments on their bills, leaving a negligible balance of $200. One 75-year-old grandmother who lives alone, the light being her only security, her light was disconnected for a mere $150 after mustering up $1,000 to pay a bill of $1,150,” he said.

Meadows recalled a recent comment from a WikiLeaks transcript which quoted United States officials as saying that in 2009, the JPS dismissed suggestions by a US expert “that would have led to improved efficiency at its plants and lower electricity prices for Jamaicans”.

He said, according to WikiLeaks, the US expert suggested the JPS “could significantly improve efficiency and lower production cost by standardising some of its turbines and cutting staff”.

Meadows said the report “does not lend confidence to the company’s reported efforts to reduce loss and cut cost”.

“It is clear that there is no motivation on the part of the JPS to invest in new, efficient technologies when the costs can be passed on to the unsuspecting consumer who has been burdened with the cost of its inefficient operations for years.”

Meanwhile, a number of Opposition senators, including Sandrea Falconer, Naval Clarke, Mark Golding and Norman Grant, supported the motion.

However, Leader of Opposition Business in the Senate AJ Nicholson cautioned senators not to encourage a breach of the JPS contract.

“We can’t take lightly any proposed review of a binding legal arrangement… we can’t afford for anyone to think we’re going outside of the ambit of the rule of law. The Senate must be prepared to send that message,” he said.

Mark Golding, while supporting the motion, said there was no point in “demonising” the JPS.

“There’s no advantage to be gained from that. The company has invested several million dollars in the local economy. They’ve made some gains. In dealing with them, they’re deserving of a certain level of treatment,” Golding said.

Opposition Senator Sandrea Falconer later criticised a June 2011 Jamaica Public Service Company (JPS)-commissioned report, which supports the light and company’s monopoly on electricity distribution in Jamaica.

Falconer said the study, done by United States-based consultants Castalia, agreed with JPS that “government should not break the monopoly over power distribution.

“According to Castalia, the break-up would more likely result in an increase in rates for residential and small commercial customers, and no reduction in the cost to larger industrial users”, she said.

The Opposition senator added that the recent Castalia report “in my view, is a perfect example of he who pays the piper, calls the tune”.

“Anyone who has read the report can only conclude that it is biased in favour of JPSCo.

“Castalia feels the separation of generation, transmission and distribution of electricity, as well as introducing competition in generation and retailing, should not be pursued.”

Falconer also criticised Castalia for using Mauritius, as an example of a country with competitive rates.

“The difference is that Mauritius is able to use different sources of competitively priced fuel products. They were forced to move to cheaper sources. Jamaica is still reliant on oil as its major fuel source,” she pointed out.

She called on the Government to renegotiate the current licence, which ends in 2020.

“JPSCo should not resist, but work towards a reasonable deal; there will be great public resentment if JPSCo resists too strenuously,” she said.

“JPSCo’s monopoly has not been good for consumers. It has engaged in behaviour that is not friendly to customers. Oftentimes they are told to pay their light bills, even if they have questions about the bill.

“But until the query is complete, customers are still required to pay, or suffer the indignity and inconvenience of having their light disconnected,” she said.

Meanwhile, Meadows, who moved the motion, also criticised the Castalia report, and called on the Office of Utilities Regulation (OUR) to “conduct an independent study to examine the impact of liberalisation of the power sector and its implications for the cost of electricity”.

Between 2000 and 2010, Jamaica’s fuel import bill almost tripled, moving from US$594 million to US$1.6 billion in 2010.