ENERGY Minister Daryl Vaz is continuing to hold fire to the feet of Jamaica Public Service Company (JPS) in what he termed the slow pace of power restoration since the passage of Hurricane Beryl more than a month ago.

He said that the restoration of just 4,000 of the 20,567 customers who had remained without electricity up to July 31 is not good enough.

“We are now one week later indicating that there are still 16,000 persons left to be restored…that’s not good enough. And the fact of the matter is that August 10th and 12th are their [JPS’s] two deadlines for the remaining restoration. And I suspect that you will hear that there are some areas that will be delayed,” Vaz said in a interview with the
Jamaica Observer on Thursday.

Reiterating his grievance with the utility company, stating the percentage of restoration, Vaz said the 97.6 per cent restoration the company has been touting is meaningless to him.

“Percentages are not customers. Percentages mean absolutely nothing to me. The 16,000 customers are who mean everything to me and the fact is that I just hope that the Office of Utilities Regulation (OUR) will continue the pressure as I have been doing with JPS for them to give us the restoration dates, the communities, and the timelines,” he said.

Over the past few weeks, Vaz has been expressing frustration and dissatisfaction with the utility company’s performance in Beryl’s aftermath and was instrumental in getting the OUR to intervene.

After being summoned to Cabinet on Wednesday, July 31, at Vaz’s behest, the OUR has since directed JPS to restore electricity to all customers who were affected by Hurricane Beryl by August 12.

The directive took effect on July 31, 2024 and requires JPS to comply with the restoration dates it had previously provided.

According to the regulatory body, failure to comply with the directive will render JPS liable to enforcement action pursuant to Section 9 of the Office of Utilities Regulation Act.

Speaking on the directive, OUR Director General Ansord Hewitt said JPS, at a meeting on Monday, July 29, assured the regulator that service would be fully restored by August 12 in the most critically damaged areas.

“The OUR is satisfied that, at this point, enough time has elapsed for JPS to have fully grasped the extent and nature of the damage and disruption to its network, the available resources, and the practicable timeline for restoration. We, therefore, expect that these are achievable targets,” Hewitt said.

The JPS, in a press release last evening, announced that it is on track to meet its August 12 deadline for full restoration of electricity to customers in all parishes, except St Elizabeth.

The company has now set a date of August 31 for restoration of service to sections of St Elizabeth, where its distribution infrastructure was badly damaged.

“This is a rebuilding process, not a restoration,” said JPS president and CEO Hugh Grant, who visited the parish earlier this week. “Based on the extent of the devastation, the electrical infrastructure that supplies sections of St Elizabeth needs to be completely rebuilt. In some areas, the network will need to be redesigned and lines relocated. The rebuilding process will be challenging,” he said.

“We are acutely aware of the frustration being experienced by our customers who are still without electricity, and we know this is not what they want to hear from us right now,” Grant said. “But I give my assurance that JPS will be doing everything we can to expedite restoration.”