Hanover councillor demands apology from JPS

Power company labels parish as having most thefts, based on faulty findings

Claudia Gardner, Assignment Coordinator

WESTERN BUREAU:Councillor of the Cauldwell division of the Hanover Parish Council, Anthony Walker, has taken the Jamaica Public Service Company (JPS) to task for presenting members of the media with an incorrect report, which implicated the parish of Hanover as having the largest electricity theft rate in the western region.

Walker made his call during the regular monthly meeting of the Hanover Parish Council on Thursday, after the operations manager for JPS in Hanover, Winston Banzie, told the meeting that the report made by the power company was incorrect.

JPS Western Regional Manager Blaine Jarrett had reported at a media breakfast in Montego Bay recently that Hanoverians were responsible for stealing 28 per cent of the electricity supplied by the company in the parish, the highest theft rate of the five parishes in the region which also comprises St James, Westmoreland, St Ann and Trelawny.

"How did they come to this conclusion?" Walker asked the operations manager during the meeting.

"They (JPS) are going to do a correct calculation. So that figure is not correct," Banzie responded. "As it relates to the losses in Hanover that was 28 per cent, but that calculation is being revisited. What happened is that JPS checks the power at the substation and then checks the power the consumers use every month. But a section of our (Hanover's) lines feeds into Negril and a section comes from St James."

Banzie said JPS would be installing two meters - one at the Great River border and the other at the Westmoreland-Hanover border in Negril - in order to correctly gauge the parish's electricity consumption.

But Walker said he was displeased with the actions of the JPS representatives, as they had been irresponsible in making the statements to the media. He called on the power company to make a public apology to electricity consumers in the parish.

"I have a responsibility to the people of Hanover, not just the Cauldwell division," Walker said. "And when things like these are made public, it should mean that you would have done your calculations and your research before making such a statement. I would rather in the future JPS representatives who are responsible for publicising this information get their facts straight, because a nuh only dunce people live in Hanover.

"And we want to make sure that anything goes out in the media is correct. As a matter of fact, we should ask JPS to retract this statement until they have the correct information," Walker said.

'I would rather in the future JPS representatives who are responsible for publicising this information get their facts straight because a nuh only dunce people live in Hanover.'