Lawsuits may shock JPS for anti-theft blackouts

Gary Spaulding, Senior Gleaner Writer

Light and power monopoly, the Jamaica Public Service Company (JPS), could run afoul of local laws if it carries out its threat to deprive paying customers of electricity supply at the expense of electricity thieves.

Prominent attorney Bert Samuels told The Gleaner yesterday that the JPS is contracted to provide 24 hours of service.

"Any deliberate breach of that contract by the JPS entitles those customers to damages and specific performance of the contract," he warned.

Samuels also cautioned that such a move by the JPS could trigger not only a legal stand-off but far-reaching social unrest as well.

"In affected inner-city communities, the reality is that it may set off a rift between the paying and non-paying customers, which is most undesirable," Samuels warned.

The Office of Utilities Regulation (OUR), the local regulator, issued a statement yesterday evening that it has summoned the JPS to a meeting Tuesday to discuss the strategy.

Stating that it was treating this issue with the highest priority given the impact on legitimate customers, the OUR has asked the JPS to provide critical information on its decision as well as on the number of paying residential and commercial customers in the affected areas, and the alleged level of damage done to JPS equipment as a result of electricity theft in these communities.

Paying customers face blackouts

Lovey, a 60-year-old amputee, is among the JPS's paying customers facing the unpleasant prospect of having her electricity disconnected daily for long stretches although she has never owed a cent for the service.

Her husband, Albert, who is also in his 60s and the sole breadwinner in the family, has absorbed abuse and threats in his daily resistance to the scores of electricity thieves who are his neighbours.

The senior citizens, who live with a daughter and two grandchildren, refuse to allow electricity scammers to abstract, or 'bridge', light or run illegal wires over their home.

Now facing bleak days and darker nights, family members say they are being penalised for being honest because they live in the Maxfield Park community.

The area borders South West St Andrew, represented by Prime Minister Portia Simpson Miller, and East Central St Andrew, by Dr Peter Phillips.

The JPS says that as part of continuing efforts to reduce the impact of electricity theft, it will be cutting the number of hours that power is provided to communities where more than 70 per cent of the electricity is stolen.

The Corporate Area communities targeted in the initial phase are Seaward Drive, Trench Town, Denham Town, Maxfield Avenue, Wilton Gardens (Rema), Central Village and Spanish Town Road.

Gary Barrow, JPS' senior vice-president for energy delivery, complained that the company is stretched to its limit. "We have tried everything to reduce electricity theft," he said.