THE EDITOR, Sir:

The story of The Jamaica Public Service (JPS) has been a very long and sad 0ne. Now that there is a new majority owner, I wonder if they will acknowledge that there is a simple, albeit expensive, solution to eliminate the continuing and aggravating power cuts to which we have been subjected for so many, many years.

Going back to the 1960s when JPS was owned by Stone & Webster through a Canadian subsidiary, I had the pleasure of knowing Mr. Richard 'Dick' Benjamin who was president of Stone & Webster and a director of JPS.

As years went by, he tried continuously to convince the Jamaican Government that it was imperative to substantially increase the generating capacity to ensure that there would be no need to have power cuts, but, unfortunately, was unable to do so.

Drop in share value

The Government would not allow any increase in electricity charges, so no additional capacity could be built and the shares of JPS, which had always been a superb investment, started to decline and power cuts became more numerous. When the value of the shares became almost worthless, the Government purchased JPS. Ever since that time utility has muddled along from crisis to crisis.

The fact is that any electricity company which is going to provide a reliable service needs to have twice the generating capacity of the highest peak demand.

This is to allow for shutting down part of the generating capacity for routine maintenance and necessary servicing and for any unexpected breakdown.

JPS has never had the required generating capacity, therefore, the machinery is not serviced regularly, so there are frequent breakdowns and power outages without the reserve capacity required to deal with the several demands.

Hopefully, Marubeni will ensure that the required generating capacity is built so that we can all enjoy a reliable service.

I am, etc.,

WILLIAM WHITING

19 Seymour Ave

Kingston 6