Phillip Paulwell, addressing the House of Representatives on Tuesday
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Opposition Spokesman on Energy Phillip Paulwell
Opposition spokesman on Energy Phillip Paulwell has criticised the government for what he claims is a lack of focus on the energy sector.
Mr Paulwell, making his contribution to the Sectoral Debate in Parliament yesterday, said since 2016 there has been no achievement for the energy ministry to speak of.
Mr Paulwell, a former energy minister himself, pointed to the high cost of electricity as an example of what he believes illustrates the lack of attention by the government to the energy needs of the country, claiming it "has no notion of a benchmark price that it wants to attain."
He said when his People's National Party left office in 2016, the price per kilowatt hour to consumers was 23 US cents, down from 42 cents at the starts of its term in office.
"Today, that price has escalated to about 40 cents, back to where we started; no wonder growth in the economy continues to elude us and our people continue to suffer," he charged.
According to Paulwell, "the Ministry of Energy has been completely unstable," as a result of which he claimed, "this lack of a sense of urgency has been typical of the government's approach to energy, and it has been to the disadvantage of our society."
JPS
He also urged the government to immediately renegotiate the license of the Jamaica Public Service Company, which expires in 2027.
In that regard, he said there needs to be a modern regime for the establishment of charging stations for electric vehicles, "that is fully competitive and to provide incentives for those to be established, using renewable sources of energy."
"That is one area that must be subject to competition immediately," he declared.
A second priority for negotiations with the JPS must be a lowering of the price of electricity for firms which operate in the special economic zones, he said.
Those operators are obliged to purchase electricity from the national grid under current arrangements, but the cost of that electricity undermines their capacity to be competitive, he argued.
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