EDITORIAL - Clarifying ownership of the OUR

JUDGING BY his remarks at a forum hosted by this newspaper last week, there is little doubt that Mr Clive Mullings, new into his second stint as Jamaica's mining and energy minister, is less than impressed that the Office of Utilities Regulation (OUR) robustly fulfils its mandate as watchdog of consumers' interest over the island's utilities.

Mr Mullings specifically aired his suspicion that the monopoly electricity distributor, Jamaica Public Service (JPS) - which also generates around 60 per cent of the country's power - does not always transmit the cheapest available electricity to the national grid and that the OUR is not paying attention.

This relates to the JPS' most reliable plant at Bogue in St James. The problem is that this plant burns expensive diesel fuel that finds its way through the cost chain to the bills of JPS' customers.

Mr Mullings, however, wondered aloud whether even as it has its Bogue plant in operation, the JPS does not often have access to cheaper electricity from independent power producers that is kept off the grid.

'Serious questions'

Said the minister: "I have serious questions of the OUR as to whether they are monitoring the dispatch of the units. I am concerned that there is an IPP (Independent Power Producer) which has a unit, they are paid for capacity, but it is not brought online."

In the process, to put Mr Mullings' concern bluntly, consumers are shafted.

If it were put to the test, Mr Mullings, we believe, would, on this matter, receive the overwhelming backing of Jamaicans. For, on the anecdotal evidence, most people do not perceive the OUR to be acting in their interest. Or, when the agency does, it is, at best, in a lukewarm manner.

The OUR declares its role is misunderstood by the public, who believe it to be "a consumer advocacy group" rather than an impartial regulator that also provides an avenue of appeal "for consumers who have grievances with utility companies".

That may indeed be so, but the emphasis of the legislation establishing the OUR is its role in ensuring that "the interests of consumers are ... protected".

An inoffensive game

However, Jamaicans perceive the OUR, in its interpretation of this role, as being aloof from their interests; that it does not belong to them. The people's sense of it is an organisation engaged in mostly playful intellectual sparring with the utilities - a kind of inoffensive game. Their desire, even if not articulated in this way, is to take back the OUR and for it to be seen to be working in the interest of consumers.

The confidence of consumers to assert this sense of ownership and for the OUR to respond to it should start, we believe, with clarity over who pays for the organisation. At present, there is an assumption that it is the utilities that finance the OUR - $196 million by JPS; $225 million by the telecoms providers and $87 million by the water authorities this fiscal year.

These regulatory fees, ultimately, find their way back to consumers in the charges of the utility companies. So they should be reflected in the customers' bill.

Devising a mechanism to achieving this can't be beyond the OUR or the utilities companies. It will have the practical value of making it clear to whom the OUR belongs.

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