JAMAICA Public Service Company (JPS) announced Saturday that the number of unrestored customers now stands at 13,712, down from roughly 16,000 reported last Thursday. The majority of these are in St Elizabeth, the utility company said.

“This is as the company pushes ahead to meet the August 12 restoration deadline for all parishes, excepting St Elizabeth. Of the almost 38,000 customers in that parish, more than 26,000 already have electricity restored to them, with a balance of over 11,500 due to receive power by August 31,” the company said.

“As indicated, St Elizabeth will require sections of the network to do a rebuild — not just a restoration,” JPS President and CEO Hugh Grant, emphasised.

Meanwhile, JPS said most parishes are nearly completed, except for Manchester, which has little over 1,000 customers awaiting supply.

“Also of note is that there are some instances where customers are out due to access issues, example, Firehole in Hanover where 30 customers are unrestored due to a landslide. Another example is in Westphalia in rural St Andrew where fewer than 20 customers are out as JPS utility vehicles cannot access the location. JPS continues to work diligently to resolve these issues.”

JPS’s total customer base islandwide is 692,000, 98 per cent of which are being served.