FORMER Prime Minister Bruce Golding says the Opposition spokesman on energy is being “more than disingenuous” in attributing to the Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) Government of 2011 the all-island electric licence granted to Jamaica Public Service Company (JPS).

According to Golding, the amended licence that was gazetted on August 19, 2011 while he was prime minister simply gave effect, as the Government was obliged to do, to the agreement entered into by the Government in July 2007 of which Paulwell was a member.

Golding was responding to comments made by Paulwell in an interview with the
Jamaica Observer on Sunday and published on Monday in which Paulwell dismissed as “absolute nonsense” claims by critics that he should be blamed for the recent furore concerning JPS’s performance, particularly in the aftermath of Hurricane Beryl.

Paulwell, who was energy minister when the People’s National Party (PNP) formed the Government, had told the Observer that the JLP Government in 2011 signed a licence with JPS which has identical provisions as the 2016 licence he had signed, “but only that there were some significant improvements”.

“There’s nothing in the 2016 licence that wasn’t in the 2011 licence, save and except for better features to protect the Jamaican consumer,” Paulwell said, adding that the provisions which grant certain privileges to the JPS were already in the previous agreement.

However Golding, noting that the current licence under which JPS operates is due to expire within the next three years, said it is in need need of urgent review and focus should be directed on that, instead of “distorting how it came to be what it is”.

Here is the full text of Golding’s response issued on Monday morning.

“Phillip Paulwell is more than disingenuous in attributing to the JLP Administration that I led the all-island electric licence granted to the

The facts are as follows:

(1) The company was originally granted a 20-year licence in April 2001.

(2) Following the acquisition of 40 per cent ownership by Marubeni in 2007, the then PNP Administration, with Paulwell as the minister responsible for energy, as a condition of its approval of Marubeni’s share ownership, required Marubeni ‘to agree to certain provisions which, in the opinion of the GOJ, was (sic) necessary to ensure the viability of the licensee as the sole distributor and supplier of electricity throughout Jamaica and the safe, reliable and economic supply of such electricity’.

(3) By letter dated July 9, 2007, Marubeni agreed for the licence to be amended to make provision for:

a) The authority of the Office of Utilities Regulation (OUR) for the preparation and revision of all requisite least-cost expansion plans for the addition of generation capacity;

b) The authority of the OUR for the management and administration of the competitive process for the addition of any new capacity;

c) Specific requirements relating to a transmission and distribution code, a merit order dispatch system, a spinning reserve policy and an effective and appropriate loss reduction policy;

d) The term of the licence be extended so that the 20-year period which commenced in 2001 would now run from July 9, 2007.

(4) The amended licence that was gazetted on August 19, 2011 while I was prime minister simply gave effect, as the Government was obliged to do, to the agreement entered into by Paulwell’s Government in July 2007. Indeed, the preamble to the amended licence states, ‘In order to fulfil the outstanding terms and conditions of the said 2007 letter of agreement… the minister and the licensee now agree to amend and restate the All-Island Electric Licence 2001 as set out herein’.

The licence under which the Jamaica Public Service Company operates is due to expire within the next three years. It is urgently in need of review. Let us focus our attention there and avoid distorting how it came to be what it is.”