WOMAN LIGHT BILL GUH FROM 2K TO 150K

Imagine living without electricity for almost two months and then being told that you owe the energy company. That is the reality of Jacqueline Barnes — a middle-aged woman from Bull Bay, St Thomas — who has been frustrated with the Jamaica Public Service Company Ltd (JPS) since 2012.
Barnes has been a customer of the JPS for eight years and has had three electrical meters installed on her premises, all owing to problems that the company happened to realise after coming to fix another issue.
She said that in 2012 after Hurricane Sandy’s fury and her light post was blown down, she was advised by a JPS representative to relocate her meter as she would complain of frequent power outages which they speculated were caused by the distance between her house and the meter’s location.
“Is 20 post it take from the JPS wire to come to my house so the JPS man keep on saying why I don’t move the wire and take it to the other meter centre being as it come from so far, because if breeze blow the light gone,” she told the Jamaica Observer as she unfolded the story.
Having checked for the availability of a space at the nearer meter centre, Barnes noted that she was instructed to have an electrician move the wire to accommodate the meter relocation.
“The electrician come and move the wire and is almost one month before me get back light,” she told the Sunday Observer.
In a letter addressed to the company in April 2015, Barnes noted that her meter was moved on October 23, 2012 but she only received electricity on Christmas Eve of the same year.
“Is 10 o’clock di night the light come,” Barnes told the Sunday Observer, “the 24th of December to be exact ‘cause the man (JPS worker) tell me say him a make me get di Christmas present”.
Coping without electricity
When asked how she managed in the period without electricity, she said she would ask her neighbour for assistance.
“Me beg somebody put down mi tings next door inna him fridge and mi use mi lamp, an mi beg dem charge mi phone an mi listen to mi phone inna di darkness,” she said.
“Me couldn’t iron, me haffi iron pan stove,” she added.
Frustrated, she said she continuously called the company which always promised that it would come soon.
When they finally fixed the electricity, Barnes recalled that there was only power in one room of the house.
“When mi call di electrician man, him say a low voltage an so me keep on calling JPS,” she said.
This did not deter her bill payment either as she admitted that though the bills were now estimated she religiously paid them.
When she questioned the estimated bills at the Church Street office in downtown Kingston, she said she was told that her meter was not spinning and was advised to make her regular payments, which according to her was between $1,500 and $2,000 monthly.
The second meter
A fire in July 2014 damaged Barnes’ electrical wire which she said was repaired.
“When di wire burn now di electrician man him fix back di wire an him say me must go to JPS an tell dem say di wire fix back so dem can turn on di light,” she recalled.
She again sacrificed her power supply for two weeks as the company worked to rectify her problem.
“Me tek two weeks widout light cause dem say dem couldn’t find di meter is di [other] JPS-man Mr Walters- a him come show dem di meter,” she added.
It was also at this point that the company realised that the employee who was to relocate the meter, installed a new meter instead of Barnes’ original one. This meant that no one would have read the new meter that was now installed under her name.
“Dem say dem neva know bout it so dem keep on billing me on di one dat not working (the old meter),” she said.
Her account then went into what the company described as a “credit state” — meaning the company would have owed her approximately $50,000 — because she religiously paid the estimated amount.
When the problem was realised, she said a JPS employee read the current meter and told her that the meter was giving a reading that meant she would owe the company $33,000.
“So me say alright JPS have more dan dat fi me so dem can just take it from dat,” she noted.
After the damaged electrical wire, Barnes said her premise was yet again assigned a new meter which seemed to have rectified the issue with low voltage.
However, she said she continued receiving estimated bills, on which she never defaulted. When she queried the reason for still receiving estimated bills, she said JPS officials failed to give her a response as they were unaware.
More darkness – the third meter
In January of 2015, Barnes said she received a call from a JPS worker who told her that he was going to fix the low voltage problem which, according to Barnes, was fixed after the second meter replacement.
“When di man call me a work now him say JPS man come fi come fix di low voltage [but] mi tell him say no di man come fix it so only ting now is di JPS meter box want a clip cause when him come him couldn’t find di key so him burst off di clip,” she said she explained to the worker.
“When me go home di Thursday night mi nuh have no light,” Barnes told the Sunday Observer. “When mi call JPS dem tell me say is not di clip alone cause dem find a different problem an dem put in a new meter.”
This time, she said she was told the meter wasn’t spinning when the worker arrived so the meter was again replaced. The third meter, she was told, gave a reading that her outstanding balance with the company was now $152,697.30 as she used up 4197 kWh.
The elusive expense
Shocked, Barnes said she went into the JPS office to have a representative explain how her bill would have jumped from roughly $2,000 to $150,000 in one month.
She said the representative was unable to explain the charges and referred her to her superior.
“When she carry me to di head one now she turn to me an say ‘how me one have three meter’. Me seh ‘lady a one meter me pay fah so me nuh know bout di three meter’,” Barnes said as she told of the encounter.
Barnes said the representatives then informed her, after asking about the type of appliances in her home, that JPS had received her old meters and had made a determination that she had used approximately $150,000 worth of electricity for the period in which she received estimated bills.

They then reduced this amount to $133,600 after deducting what they said was the total she had been paying over the months in estimated expenses.
Though JPS was unable to pinpoint the period which Barnes was being billed for, she was told that her monthly bill during the period of estimated readings would have amounted to $10,000 — $8,000 more than what she would usually pay monthly — due to the increase in oil prices and other issues.
Barnes’ letter sent to JPS stated that the representative commented that her “large family” and the fact that “money I once paid cah pay light bill again” would also have been contributing factors to the increased bill.
Out of patience
When the Sunday Observer contacted the energy company in January, we were asked to allow the two parties the privacy to sort the problem. It was after this call to the company that the customer said she had received a call from JPS inviting her to meet with them to discuss her account.
When the reporter spoke with Barnes last week, she told the Sunday Observer that she had grown frustrated with the representatives who are yet to inform her of the plan to move forward.
According to a statement of Barnes’ account, the lump sum has been on her account for almost a year now – since March 10 2015.
She told the Sunday Observer that she has run out of patience with the energy company.
“One a dem come give me one payment plan – $10,000 a month fi me pay,” a frustrated Barnes said.
“How me fi pay dat fi clear it off? Mi nuh understand, a nuh say me nah pay, me a pay every month so how comes it reach to dat,” she continued.
Barnes noted that her monthly bills since the lump sum has returned to the amount she usually consumes and pays for monthly. In fact in January 2016, her ‘total current charges’ was $2,377. 37. The balance brought forward at that time was 136,711.04. She added that the balance amount fluctuates monthly.
Barnes has written to the JPS twice, has sought the intervention of the Office of Utilities and Regulation and is still in debt of over $100,000 – an amount which cannot be explained to her but which she is expected to pay