JPS: Contractor faulted for shock death

Months after a Jamaica Public Service Company (JPS) contractor died after being electrocuted in Trench Town, the power company is reporting that protocols were breached in the execution of his duties.

The revelation was made during Thursday’s Gleaner Editors’ Forum, where Senior Vice-President for Energy Delivery Blaine Jarrett said that that was one of the conclusions of an internal investigation.

However, he declined to share additional information, stating that the incident may become a legal matter.

“In this particular case, this individual was trained, and about two months before, given a refresher. What we have seen in our investigation so far is that protocols were breached,” he said.

The contractor, Ainsley Scott, was responding to a customer issue in the community when the February incident occurred.

Residents reported that Scott was seen on fire atop a utility pole, hanging helplessly upside down.

He was rescued by a resident but died days later at hospital.

Scott, who was employed by M&O Traders, was one of the JPS’s emergency-response contractors.

The business is owned by a policeman and a barber, according to Companies Office of Jamaica records.

The Gleaner asked the group of company executives about the vetting processes employed by the JPS before engaging contractors for work, the level of certification needed for the job, and the training regimen for contractors.

“What we have observed is that there are elements of our contracting process that could have been strengthened. What we are doing now is to strengthen those in terms of some mandatory requirements for the firm, and we’re looking at those from lessons learned, and we’re improving,” Jarrett said.

Scott’s death and several other “near misses” have been used by the company to recalibrate and re-evaluate its safety culture.

It has mandated that at every site, there must be an independent contractor supervisor.

Jarrett said that previously, “a lot” of the contractors worked directly under JPS supervision, or in some instances, with a “high-level” employee rather than a supervisor.

“What we have also mandated is that in every single instant before they start the job, we validate that they have the right personal protective equipment before a job is dispatched to them. While it was a requirement for them to have it, that’s checks and balances on a daily activity basis,” he said.

Joseph Williams, senior vice-president for generation and business development, stressed that there were “systems and processes” in place to prevent Scott’s death but said that several were not followed.

“We certainly would have taken lessons learned from that and certainly would have thought of reinvigorating our entire safety programme around improving contractors’ safety and commit that this will be the last,” Williams said.

JPS CEO Michel Gantois said that the provision for health and safety is being upgraded in the contract for third parties to include the number of audits and reports received, the number of supervisors in the field, and to make sure that the provision of safety equipment is done by the subcontractor to staff.

“I’m revising a lot of the different actions we are taking, including hiring some consultants to work on some of the deeper issues,” said Gantois.

“We really want to go from the bottom up in improving the safety culture, the safety behaviour, which is one of the issues we have highlighted and one of the lessons learned.”

kimone.francis@gleanerjm.com