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Tapia links reducing the cost of energy to economic prosperity

Published:Wednesday | December 4, 2019 | 12:24 AMAlbert Ferguson/Gleaner Writer
Tapia
Tapia

WESTERN BUREAU:

The United States Ambassador to Jamaica Donald Tapia is of the view that if the cost of commercial electricity is reduced by 0.06 cents per kilowatt-hour, the country’s fortunes could explode into economic prosperity.

While acknowledging that the prospects for greater investments by his country in Jamaica are at an all-time high, Tapia said the cost of energy remains one of the major problems that Jamaica has to seriously correct in order to attract world-class companies seeking to build out factory spaces here.

“If we can bring it [energy cost] down just another 0.06 cents per kilowatt-hour, Jamaica would explode because now we are in the marketplace,” Tapia said while addressing business leaders on Saturday at the Montego Bay Chamber of Commerce and Industry awards banquet in St James.

“We are in the marketplace that we can attract the manufacturing and so forth here [but], the cost of energy has got to come back down, it has to come down,” Tapia said.

The ambassador added that while Jamaica, over the last six years, made great strides in bringing down the cost of energy, much more can be done by tapping into the natural resources of the country, to include solar power.

“We have brought down the electricity cost through liquefied natural gas, wind and solar power,” said Tapia, who also wants the cost of electricity to go down so that Jamaicans who are living below the poverty line in rural communities, towns, and villages are able to afford the energy cost.

“This is not right, it’s our jobs as entrepreneurs to see what we can do to help the out-parishes [rural] that we all know about,” continued Tapia.

“This is something that is here, we have the sun, we have the wind, let’s use it for our own benefit to bring down our energy to be able to transform out to the outer areas [rural communities], where it’s hard to reach some of the Jamaican people,” the ambassador said.