EDITORIAL - Mr Obiglio, the fall guy

Last week's announcement that Damian Obiglio was stepping down as CEO of the Jamaica Public Service Company (JPS) was framed as a personal decision, with the obligatory phrase of his wish to pursue "other interests".

The greater likelihood is that Mr Obiglio was pushed, a victim of the public's sour mood against JPS over high electricity charges, but which was lumped with a host of other complaints. Indeed, the new energy minister, Mr Clive Mullings, stopped just short of saying that he added muscle to the push against Mr Obiglio.

JPS, as we are sure its managers would admit, has a customer-service problem, and it is a fact that Mr Obiglio is not given to sugar-coating the hard and harsh realities about energy in Jamaica and what is to be done to fix the problem. He laid out the bald facts while seeking to pursue the interests of his company.

In that respect, and in the specific context of Jamaica, Damian Obiglio may not, at this time, be the right man for the job. In any event, managers who preside over enterprises when consumers are turned off by them are not usually the ones, even with the best strategies at hand, to lead a turnaround.

Yet, it would be foolhardy for anyone to believe that Mr Obiglio's departure will necessarily solve the issues about which JPS customers gripe and the larger matter of energy in Jamaica. For the truth is, Damian Obiglio is not the problem. JPS's failures are primarily a failure of government policy.

The price Jamaicans pay for electricity is, fundamentally, the result of two things: the fuel that is converted to energy, and the efficiency of the equipment used.

In the case of JPS, which itself generates more than 60 per cent of the power that reaches the national grid, its plants are mostly old and inefficient. And they burn mostly expensive oil. Indeed, this newspaper has long advocated the conversion to a mix of other, cheaper fuel sources, including coal and liquefied natural gas (LNG).

Fixing the energy policy critical

Jamaican administrations, however, have been ditheringly slow at formulating a workable energy policy. And when they agree on something, they have been grossly inept, and perhaps deliberately obfuscatory, at implementation. The recent embarrassment over the tender process for an LNG storage and regasification facility is a case in point.

Yet, fixing the energy policy is critical if Jamaica is to have a serious chance at improving the competitive position of its economy.

While the JPS, like any other business, has a stake in enhancing its customer service, its poor performance in this area, in large part, reflects the weak oversight from the agency whose job it is to keep JPS honest - the Office of Utilities Regulation. Moreover, JPS remains a monopoly because of government policy, which, especially with regard to transmission and distribution, Mr Mullings is not of a mind to change.

While there is much to criticise JPS about, it is also a victim of many consumers who have long had a free ride on the power grid, but who now, because of newly employed technology, will have to pay. Many of these consumers have loud voices and, importantly, votes.