More than $48 million have been paid out to customers of the country’s two largest utility providers for breaches in guaranteed standards.
That’s according to the Office of Utilities Regulation, OUR.
Nora Gaye Banton reports.
Guaranteed Standards refer to performance measures which guide how utility services are delivered to their customers.
According to the OUR, breaches of those measures were largely committed by the Jamaica Public Service Company, JPS, and the National Water Commission, NWC.
JPS committed the most breaches. More than 18,200.
That’s a 16% decrease when compared to the previous quarter.
The OUR says JPS’ breaches attracted compensatory payments of over $40 million.
According to the regulatory body, the payments were all applied automatically to the accounts of affected customers.
On the other hand, NWC committed more than 2,800 breaches.
That’s a 7% decline compared with to the previous period.
The OUR says the number of breaches by the water supplier resulted in a potential compensation of $15-million.
However, only $8 million of that amount was paid.
The OUR says through its direct intervention, more than $1.4-million was secured for utility consumers.
Of that amount, JPS accounted for 48%. The NWC accounted for 45%.
The remaining 7% was recorded by telecommunications provider, Flow
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