Letter of the Day - Paying more for less

THE EDITOR, Sir:

I WOULD like to bring to your attention another effect of the current load-shedding exercises being carried out by the Jamaica Public Service Company. Not only have these outages caused the country much inconvenience and lost productivity, but they also have the effect of increasing the usage of electricity and consequently the amounts charged on our bills.

This was the explanation I received from one of the company's customer service representatives. It seems that when the power returns after one of these outages, there is an inordinate amount of electricity used to refrost the refrigerator causing this increase.

So the customer is, in essence, paying more for less electricity. The customer is also made to bear these higher costs as a result of an action which they had absolutely no part in carrying out. This situation cannot go unnoticed by the Office of Utilities Regulation.

Why should the customer pay more for the load-shedding actions of JPSCo?

The OUR should demand, not only a refund of this additional cost to customers, but also a detailed explanation of what tangible measures (other than load-shedding) the power company is making to rectify the situation.

I am etc.,

JOMO RUSSELL

majweed@yahoo.com

10 Harrison Close

Kingston 19

Via Go-Jamaica

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