JPS must be more transparent
Published:Thursday | July 11, 2024 | 12:07 AM
THE EDITOR, Madam:
A major stumbling block to the Jamaica Public Service Company’s (JPS) forging a relationship built on trust with its customers, is the less than transparent manner in which the company compiles its customers’ light bills.
For example, as a net billing customer, JPS pays me 20 cents or less per kWh for the excess solar energy I sell to its grid. However, JPS sells me energy it says it gets from independent power providers for $24 or more per kWh.
The fact that an increasing number of Jamaican households and businesses are switching to alternative power sources means that it is reasonable to presume JPS is now being supplied by a host of cheap energy. In light of this, why have customers’ light bills sky-rocketed?
While JPS is ravaging customers’ pocketbooks, the Office of Utilities Regulation (OUR) is displaying nothing but impotence. OUR’s perennial failure to protect the rights of Jamaican consumers of utilities is a classic case of the salt losing its savour...
As its regulator, the OUR must insist on JPS being more transparent with how it compiles its customers’ bills.
CASHLEY BROWN