Durrant Pate/Contributor

Opposition spokesman Phillip Paulwell has called out the Government on what he says is its poor management of the energy sector—giving the Holness administration a failing grade on his scorecard. 

Making his contribution to the 2024/2025 Sectoral Debate in the House of Representatives, Paulwell made a stinging broadside on the stewardship of the sector, citing many missed opportunities by the government.

“Our economy has not grown appreciably over many years. This lack of growth or slow growth has been linked to the poor performance of our energy sector over many decades,” he argued.

Citing that energy is so crucial and affects in a profound way the high cost of production and the resulting lack of growth, the shadow minister contended, “After some glowing and significant achievements in Energy between 2012 and 2016 we are now witnessing reversals of that trend.”

Paulwell made mention of the World Economic Forum’s (WEF) Global Energy Architecture Performance Index, which recorded Jamaica’s dramatic improvement between 2013 and 2017, moving 74 places from 166 to 92. 

Jamaica’s plunging global ranking

However, he argued that this improvement slowed appreciably to six places during the 2017-2021 period. “When I was minister, we had determined that a price of 15 US cents per kWh was the price that we should aspire to achieve if our economy were to become competitive and grow. Today, this Government has no notion of a benchmark price that it wants to attain,” Paulwell asserted.

Continuing, he said, “I don’t even believe that this government is aware of the price of electric energy at this time. If they did then there would be a greater sense of urgency to correct the situation. When we left government in 2016 the price per kWh of electricity was about 23 [American] cents. Today, that price has escalated to about 40 US cents per kWh. No wonder growth in the economy continues to elude us and our people continue to suffer.”

His broadside focused on the portfolio minister, Daryl Vaz, saying, “The Ministry of Energy has been completely unstable and unfocused, and nothing much has even been attempted since 2016. This lack of a sense of urgency has been typical of this Government in its approach to energy to the disadvantage of our society.”

Delayed review of Electricity Act 2015 

Paulwell cited the issue of the Electricity Act, which this House passed in 2015 to modernise the legal and regulatory framework for electricity with the law intended to being transitional and would need a comprehensive review after five years to observe its implementation and to anticipate the upcoming expiration of the tenure of the existing Jamaica Public Service Company (JPS) license. 

This review should have been done in 2020, with the shadow minister explaining that the review only started after his insistence but the process has been painfully slow. 

He posited that even though the work of the Joint Select Committee has been completed, citizens are yet to see the tabling of the report in Parliament.

“We are not very impressed with the outcome of the work of the Joint Select Committee. I believe we missed an opportunity to complete the work that was started in 2015 and instead, the Joint Select Committee has only tinkered in this review, carefully ensuring that the status quo is preserved,” added Pauwell.