By Prince Moore
There was a 103% increase in utility consumers contacting the Office of Utilities Regulation's Consumer Affairs Unit (CAU) following the passage of Hurricane Beryl last year.
During the July to September period the CAU says it received 1,581 contacts for the quarter, compared to 778 in the April to June period.
The information is contained in OUR's Quarterly Performance Report for third quarter last year, representing the period immediately following Hurricane Beryl.
The report reveals that the most significant increases by complaint category were Rebate at 380%, Interruption of Service 320%, Billing Matters 116% and Poor Service Quality 21%.
The Jamaica Public Service Company (JPS) registered the largest block of complaints with 908 or 57% of the contacts received, followed by the National Water Commission (NWC) with 256 contacts representing 16%.
Flow accounted for 348 or 22%, of all contacts received during the period.
The OUR says billing matters, at 50%, remained the main reason utility consumers contacted the CAU, representing a three-percentage point increase compared to the preceding quarter.
JPS and NWC accounted for the most billing-related matters, with 549 or 35% and 169 or 11%, respectively.
Some of the billing matters, specifically high consumption and estimated billing, related to Hurricane Beryl.
At 29% of total contacts, Service Interruption remained the second highest reason for customer contact with the CAU for the review period.
It is followed by Poor Service Quality, Irregular Supply, Disconnection, Rebate and Guaranteed Standards.
Service interruption contacts increased by 15 percentage points to 29% when compared to the preceding quarter.
Compensation secured
The OUR says through its intervention more than $1.3 million was secured for utility consumers.
Of this amount, NWC and JPS accounted for more than 1.1 million or 84% and almost 160,000 or 12% respectively.
The remaining 56,681.71, or 4%, was attributed to Flow.
The OUR says little over 270,000 or (20%) of the total credits secured were recorded during the reporting period.
It says they were applied to customers' accounts by the service providers in previous periods.
For JPS, the data indicated that 20,648 Guaranteed Standards breaches were committed during the quarter, representing a 13% increase over the preceding period.
These breaches attracted compensatory payments of approximately $40.64 million.
But no compensatory payments were made as JPS is awaiting a response from the Energy Ministry for Force Majeure relief (suspension) from the Guaranteed Standards for the period July 2 to August 12.
JPS advised that the Force Majeure request to the ministry was due to the effects of Hurricane Beryl on the island, which affected its ability to meet the requirements of the Guaranteed Standards.
NWC's Guaranteed Standards compliance report indicates that 3,987 breaches were committed during the review period, representing a 40% increase over the preceding period.
These breaches had a potential payout of approximately $18.53 million.
But, actual payments amounted to approximately $5.26 million, or 28% of total potential payments, and were made through automatic credits to the affected accounts.
The remaining 72% of potential payments not made include those breaches for which the affected customers did not submit the required claim forms for validation.
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