Don't blame the OUR
Published:Monday | December 6, 2010 | 12:00 AM
THE EDITOR, Sir:
Why beat up on the Office of Utilities Regulation (OUR) hoping that it will rise from its slumber and "intervene" on behalf of consumers, "in the face of this frontal assault on our pockets", in the vexing matter of the new policy by the Jamaica Public Service (JPS) Company Limited of adding general consumption tax (GCT) to reconnection charges (Howard D. Hamilton, Letter of the Day, December 3)? It is the Government that imposed the tax in the first place.
Strictly speaking, it is not the JPS that has shocked us into disbelief. It is the Government, working through the JPS, and which, after all, will benefit from the collection of GCT on reconnection fees and the list of other items associated with the services provided by the JPS. Protest, if there is to be any, ought properly to be directed at Minister Audley Shaw and the Ministry of Finance, and not the "impotent" creature of Parliament, the OUR.
I am, etc.,
EVERTON PRYCE