Opposition spokesman on energy and mining, Phillip Paulwell, says he would rethink his stance against the Government selling its 20 per cent share in the Jamaica Public Service (JPS) Company, if the Government acquires shares in the assets of the power company’s new 190MW gas-fired power plant at Old Harbour.

“If you are selling your existing 20 per cent in the JPS, that’s fine if, at the same time, you are going to maintain your 20 per cent in the 190-megawatt plant to be established,” Paulwell told Minister of Finance and Planning Audley Shaw during the Standing Finance Committee’s (SFC) review of the 2017/18 budget at Gordon House, last week.

However, Shaw insisted that the question should instead be directed at the Minister of Science, Energy and Technology Dr Andrew Wheatley.

In January, Paulwell said that government’s proposal to divest its shares in the JPS was ill-advised and untimely.

He said that it would deprive the country of the opportunity to maximise the expected increase in value of JPS assets, when the modernisation and energy diversification of the company is completed.

He had said that with JPS assets of US $760 million at the end of 2015, now being positioned to increase in terms of its asset base, this could achieve energy efficiency and significantly grow revenues in which the Government should have a share.