Jamaica Public Service (JPS) is embarking on a clampdown of third-party service providers who use any of its approximately 300,000 utility poles islandwide.

JPS hosted its National Utility Pole Line Conference at the Jamaica Conference Centre, downtown Kingston, on Tuesday, to discuss several related issues including the problem of improper connections to the grid and the failure of many users of the poles to cooperate with the power company.

“A very important thing that is lacking is a system of how we work together. I see our grid like the human body, with different parts working together. We have different services being offered across our grid, not just power. People who use the poles should have an agreement with JPS, which includes the rules of engagement. We have a challenge out there because, over the years, we have a lot of people using our poles who have no agreement with JPS,” said Errington Case, manager of grid interconnection at JPS.

According to Case, the Electricity Act of 2015 forces JPS to enter into contracts and affords people the right to be on its poles. However, a contract with JPS must be in place before that can happen. But Case admitted that JPS has not always enforced this rule and is now serious about changing things.

“We at JPS also have to ensure we are enforcing those standards. We have dropped the baton in terms of being the ones who are heralding the standards. We have to have a bit of change in terms of our approach as JPS and we have started to do that.

“The Government of Jamaica has been on our backs, in terms of enforcing certain standards, especially in the tourism areas. If a tourist comes here and has one minor accident, chances are they are going to lay down and start calling insurance companies. You don’t want that type of liability out there. It cannot be business as usual.”

He addressed a situation where the place known as the Hip Strip in Montego Bay, St James, posed a risk to tourists.

“You have hundreds of tourists walking up and down that strip. JPS operations teams, along with the parish council representatives and several other persons, are trying to address the violations. Sad to say that with all the engagement we have had, these hazards are still on the Hip Strip. If something major happens to a tourist because of something that is exposed, that in effect can sink most small companies, which are the source of the problems. There is need for greater collaboration,” Case said.

He pointed to a utility pole along with wires that recently fell onto the fence of a school that could have caused harm.

“The pole was replaced and we were busy trying to get all the other people with attachments on our pole to come on board and remove them. We didn’t get anything from them and we didn’t do the next thing that the contract empowers us to do, but we will be doing it going forward. There was a failure and the pole fell and somebody could have lost a loved one. We cannot continue like this,” he said, adding that a new colour labelling system will be introduced soon to identify the owners of each connection.

If contact is made and no action follows, the connection will be pulled.

Dave Williams, manger of the Geographic Information System (GIS) at JPS, said the company is looking to procure two systems that will make taking action against violators an easier process.

“The first is called a mobile mapper. In the past, we used to send people on the road with hand-held devices to do mapping of poles. We had to map 300,000 poles and we realised that going through this manually is not going to work. With the mobile mapper, we are able to drive out and the device on top of the vehicle will take a 360 view of the entire network. Doing that, we will be able to capture where every pole is. The big thing that we will be able to provide is auditable data.

“The next thing is an attached portal. With that, we will be able to clearly identify, from visual images, where there is compliance and where there are breaches,” he said.