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Despite a cease-and-desist order being served on the Jamaica Public Service Company (JPS) to halt its transformer protection programme, consultations are still under way for a class action lawsuit on behalf of residents of Woodford Park in St Andrew, who have complained about the loss of electricity on a regular basis.
The JPS’s efforts to implement a transformer protection programme, which it argued had been necessary to protect equipment being damaged due to illegal abstraction of electricity, had seen frequent disruptions of home and business supplies with students and teachers engaging in online classes being knocked offline and some call centre staff unable to work from home.
The action has forced the Office of Utilities Regulation (OUR) to issue a cease-and-desist order, instructing the JPS to stop the wholesale denial of electricity to customers.
“The decision of the OUR is now in effect and we are watching to see what happens in the next 90 days of the order. No one seems to have known about the programme from the enquires that I have made, and it gives the impression of some arbitrariness about the action,” St Andrew South Eastern Member of Parliament (MP) Julian Robinson told The Sunday Gleaner.
“We will be watching to see how many times the community loses electricity, during the cease-and-desist order period,” he said.
Attorney-at-Law Ayisha Robb said class action suits are a valuable part of the legal system and are precedent-setting.
“In my years of practice, I have never represented anyone seeking to bring such an action, but this is where a number of persons would bring an action to seek remedy to a situation against a body such as the case with the JPS,” she told The Sunday Gleaner on Thursday.
“I can tell you, though, that such an action is taxing on resources with respect to statements and affidavits, because the impact of the action for which the redress is being sought may not be the same for everyone. That would have to be borne out in the affidavits,” she said.
