MANDEVILLE, Manchester — The National Water Commission (NWC) and the electricity provider Jamaica Public Service (JPS), came in for strong criticism from councillors at the recent monthly sitting of the Manchester Parish Council.

In the case of the NWC, councillors zeroed in on what was perceived as the company’s negligence in dealing with severe water supply issues across the parish.

Guy McCallum, the NWC’s area manager for Manchester and St Elizabeth, spoke of an “internal plan” which he said aimed to improve infrastructure and fix the inadequacies. But councillors, who insisted that they were well placed to contribute to any such plan because of their local knowledge, wanted to know how it was that they were hearing about this for the first time.

Mayor of Mandeville and Chairman of the Manchester Parish Council Brenda Ramsay described it as “an indictment on our governance that you have two levels of government — central and the local authority — and every step of the way we (local authority) are bypassed. Yet, we are the first and, I might, without any apologies say the most and the more critical level of governance. It really is a shame that in a plan going forward for whatever years… 15 elected representatives should be bypassed.”

Ramsay tagged the NWC’s approach as “autocratic” and “retrograde”.

“…I know the way forward is that civil society and all the stakeholders come to the table and we sit down and plan… we are here representing people and you are here representing a bottom line,” she told the NWC representative.

Parish councillors also took issue with the JPS for soaring electricity bills, its insensitivity to difficulties faced by its customers and its “unsatisfactory” level of customer service.

Sam Davis, head of government and regulatory affairs at JPS, sought to explain cost-saving options being explored by the company such as using contractors to deliver bills to a central location as opposed to using the postal service.

But Councillor Anthony Bryce of the Newport Division argued that since citizens were required to pay their electricity bills, it was only reasonable for the JPS to pay the cost to ensure that bills are received by customers.

Bryce was among those questioning a recent initiative by the JPS, which requires customers visiting its offices to make complaints, having to speak to customer care representatives impersonally via a telephone instrument. He put into perspective the challenge for an elderly and technologically-challenged person who, having sacrificed “meagre” savings to come to the office, is instructed to use a telephone, then wait and respond to varied and complex recorded instructions.

Davis disclosed that the company was contemplating outsourcing the call centre that has grown from 45 seats to over one hundred to a dedicated service provider for greater answering capacity and efficiency.

Andrewnett Henzil, customer care Officer for the Commercial Department at the JPS’s Mandeville branch, assured councillors that her company was “hearing the cries and doing what is necessary to improve the service.”