PERMANENT secretary in the Ministry of Transport, Telecommunications and Energy Carol Palmer has admitted that the Government is still battling the Jamaica Public Service Company (JPS) for clear information and timelines, as members of the Public Administration and Appropriations Committee criticised the utility for failing to provide detailed restoration updates.

Meeting at Gordon House on Wednesday, the committee heard from several permanent secretaries who outlined their ministries’ progress in Hurricane Melissa recovery efforts. However, during the sitting, frustration quickly mounted as members of Parliament (MPs) questioned JPS’s lack of providing restoration timelines and the accuracy of the figures it continues to present.

Palmer told the committee that the Government has repeatedly pressed JPS for parish-level and community-level details but continues to receive broad percentages that she said means little to ordinary Jamaicans.

“It is not enough to say you’ve done 20 per cent, 40 per cent, 60 per cent when people don’t have light, and as one man said the other day, where he lives, they never lost light, so when you say you have restored 65 per cent to the area where he is, that’s not true because they had the light all the time. So we are in a constant confrontation, if you will, with JPS about giving us some proper information and timelines so that the citizens can organise themselves, so the fight continues as far as JPS is concerned,” she said.

Her comments supported complaints from MPs who said JPS’s figures have obscured the true extent of the crisis. St James Southern MP Nekeisha Burchell argued that the company’s claim that her parish is 79 per cent restored is misleading. She warned that while parts of Montego Bay are back on the grid, “the rural constituencies are still in 100 per cent darkness”.

“So when they break it out, if you could ask them to separate or disaggregate the data so that I can then work with my producers, my chicken farmers, and other producers in the constituency so they can have a timeline as to when they can ramp up their production. Because not one light post has been raised in South St James since the passage of Hurricane Melissa. The wires, a lot of them, in trying to clear the pathway, we’ve had to cut them to get vehicle moving through the constituency,” she expressed.

In her response, Palmer agreed with Burchell’s concerns.

“The fact is, we have asked JPS to break down the figures. Because telling people percentages don’t mean anything to the average person. Seventy-six per cent of what? So we have been pushing but only this morning, I’ve sent a letter to the OUR because we need the OUR [Office of Utilities Regulation] to help us to fight this fight,” she said.

In addition to concerns about data transparency, MP for St Mary Central Omar Newell questioned whether the strained relationship between the company and the State was now slowing recovery efforts due to the Government’s decision to signal that JPS’s all-island licence will not be automatically renewed.

“Last year, before I became a Member of Parliament, I was able to get better information from JPS after Beryl. Now, as a Member of Parliament, I can hardly get any information. So I have a question, is the ability of the ministry to push JPS hampered by the fact that a formal notice that their licence will not be renewed has been provided? Is there any detection of that,” he asked.

Palmer acknowledged that the licence issue had affected the company’s access to financing, a problem she said the ministry is now trying to help resolve.

“The information we’ve been given is that they need to secure financing and because we have pulled on the licence, if you will, my choice of words, they are unable to attract capital and the time remaining on the licence does not allow them enough time to secure capital so that they can repay within the time of the licence and there’s no guarantee that there will be a renewed or new licence and we cannot step back on that,” she explained.

She added that Government would not step back from its intention to renegotiate the terms, insisting that electricity costs and service standards must improve.

“The country has been suffering high price of electricity and all the other things that we’ve been talking about for years and we have approval from Cabinet to push for these changes,” she said.

Furthermore, MPs stressed that the immediate communication breakdown between JPS and elected representatives is compounding the frustration of affected residents. Several members said they had no clear contact within the utility during the aftermath of the hurricane, leaving them unable to answer the flood of messages from constituents desperate for updates.

“The amount of calls that we are bombarded with… and we can’t respond because, truth be told, I don’t know who to talk to [and] If you do speak to someone, they can’t give you any information at all. So if that can be put in place immediately just for communication… just give us a point person in each parish,” said MP for Manchester North Western Mikael Phillips.

He added that fallen poles still blocking access routes in several communities were delaying aid and preventing even preliminary repairs.

“Residents are afraid to even cut it because they feel as if they cut it, there’s no electricity coming back because of a pole that needs to probably be replaced,” he expressed.

East Rural St Andrew MP Juliet Holness also urged the ministry to demand more structured communication, noting that parish managers were often difficult to reach, and that MPs could assist restoration more effectively if given clearer guidance. She argued that reconnecting water pumps and other essential services should take priority in the restoration sequence.

“I would love for them to give us an indication, instead of percentages, the critical spaces that need electricity first. We want to be able to help them where we can as MPs… but they’re not communicating, so we don’t know what we can do to help,” she said.

Palmer assured the committee that the ministry was working to improve coordination. She said several matters had recently gone to Cabinet and that the OUR had been tasked with verifying the company’s cost estimates and supporting the Government’s push for clearer, more reliable information.