MoBay raps JPS over substandard service
MONTEGO BAY, St James — Charles Sinclair, the Chairman of the St James Parish Council is to meet with representatives of the Jamaica Public Service tomorrow, to discuss, among other issues, what he has described as the the light and power company’s substandard service to the parish.
Chief among the issues to be discussed is the slow rate of response from JPS with regards to the maintenance of streetlights within the parish.
” We are charged about $15 million monthly by the JPS for street lights, but based on a recent assessment we have discovered that approximately 25 per cent of the parish’s public street lights are defective,” Sinclair said, noting that the council is billed for street lamps whether or not they are working.
Two weeks ago, Sinclair who is also mayor of Montego Bay wrote to the utility company, noting that past discussions between the two entities had resulted in the development of a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU), under which the council would engage the services of an independent auditor to assess and submit reports of ‘non-working or otherwise defective streetlights’, which would then be forwarded to JPS.
“The reports have been submitted (to JPS), however it should be noted that the repairs are tremendously slow in being done, or not done at all. The effect of this is that many areas continue to exist in darkness or are poorly lit,” he argued.
The letter further stated that the council was disgusted at:
* the poor maintenance of lines which are not being cleared of overgrowth;
* failure to replace rotted wooden poles;
* failure of other service providers that use the JPS’ infrastructure, namely cable companies, to keep their cables properly tensioned;
*failure to prevent unlawful removal of light fixtures by contractors, and
*the lack of accountability for light fixtures removed during road construction on the Northern Coastal Highway.
“The parish council is seeking the intervention of the president of JPS on the matter, as the deficiencies have caused tremendous concern to the council and the citizens of the parish of St James as a whole,” Sinclair emphasised.