THE Jamaica Public Service (JPS) says it has sought the assistance of the Office of Utilities Regulation (OUR) and the Government in crafting strategies to deal with electricity theft in a more effective manner.

“The root of the problem is crime and poverty, and no technological solution is going to fix that,” said JPS President and CEO Kelly Tomblin, in addressing questions regarding the failure of the recently implemented Resident Advanced Metering Infrastructure (RAMI) system to eradicate electricity theft.

Instead, Tomblin said, the utility company has requested assistance from the Government, OUR, the Private Sector Organisation of Jamaica, and the Jamaica Social Investment Fund, among others, to deal with the problem.

“…Let’s get all these agencies together, and let’s design a new lost prevention, a new programme to get customers on the programme,” Tomblin said, adding that the OUR is expected to respond formally to the proposal later this month.

Tomblin was speaking Thursday at a press conference at the utility company’s offices on Knutsford Boulevard in New Kingston.

Among the new measures suggested to combat electricity theft is a pre-paid electricity programme, which will function similar to existing prepaid telephone systems. A pilot for that programme should start in another three months, explained Keith Smith, senior vice-president at the JPS.

“We are really looking at two different types of solutions. One, where we have a meter that will connect back to the [JPS] network over a telecommunications network. So we will use something like a Digicel or a LIME GPRS service and the device will have a little modem attached to it with a SIM card,” he explained, adding that with this system persons would be required to purchase their electricity.

“And the next solution is where we are looking at stand-alone meters. That will require a little more intelligence on the computerised side, where you go into a distribution centre and you buy a voucher, and then, connected to your meter, you will either have a keypad or a sensor that can read this voucher and transfer it to a certain [electricity] value,” he said.

In both options, customers would be alerted whenever the value of their prepaid service is near completion. They will also be able to purchase varying amounts of electricity, and will be able to turn off the system when it is not in use.