WESTERN BUREAU — Less than three weeks after breaking ground for a $126-million electricity expansion project at Bogue in Montego Bay, the Jamaica Public Service Company (JPSCo) has fired the American contractors for failing to meet a financial obligation of the contract.

“The Jamaica Public Service Company has terminated its agreement with Manning Industries Incorporated of the United States, which had been contracted to implement the company’s 120-megawatt generation expansion project at Bogue in Montego Bay,” community relations officer for the JPSCo, Kathy Cooke read from a prepared statement Friday.

“JPSCo has indicated that this action was necessary to ensure the timely completion of the project as the contractor has been unable to fulfil the requirements of the contract.”

Cooke refused to elaborate on the reason behind the termination and Manning Industries could not be reached for comment. However, according to a source close to some of the local sub-contractors, Manning did not provide the upfront money required under the contract to ensure that there would be no delay in the work.

Since Mirant took control of the JPSCo last year, they have embarked on a campaign to boost generating capacity and decrease unscheduled power outages.

Last August, Manning Industries were contracted to install 25 megawatts of emergency power at the Bogue plant.

But mechanical breakdowns at the JPSCo and its private power supplier forced the company into scheduled load-shedding that eventually eased just before Christmas.

The power that is supposed to be generated by the $126-million project is a part of the JPSCo’s 10-year plan to increase generating capacity across the island.

The local contractors — TankWeld Metals, Neville Daley and Mobile Welding and Engineering Works Limited — along with experts from Mirant Corporation, are now seeing the project through to completion.

Cooke told the Observer that the project would be completed within budget and on time and said that steps had been taken to ensure that a similar problem would not occur in the future.

“What the steps are, I cannot tell you but we have examined what we did and how we are going to proceed and we have taken all the steps we can to ensure that this doesn’t happen anymore. We are confident that we will have no further disruptions,” she said.

On completion, the project is expected to add 80 megawatts of new capacity to the grid this year and another 40 by the middle of 2003.

The increased capacity will make the plant, sited on what used to be a 15-acre cane field, the largest in the island. In addition, it will be the first plant in the island to use a combination of gas and steam energy. The steam generation will be facilitated by water harnessed from nearby sewage ponds.