Letter of the Day | Where are our regulators?

THE EDITOR, Madam:

The Prime minister recently made a comment, considered controversial in some quarters, that government agencies struggle to attract top talent. To many outside of the public sector, this was not controversial at all. It was, in fact, perhaps the most honest acknowledgement of reality we’ve heard in a long time.

Nowhere is this reality more painfully visible than in how we regulate our utilities and industries. In this period following the destructive passage of Hurricane Melissa, when Jamaicans need the protection of regulators more than ever, what we’ve had instead is silence, inertia, and a shocking absence of innovation from agencies like the Office of Utilities Regulation (OUR), the Consumer Affairs Commission, and even the Financial Services Commission.

Let’s be specific, lest anyone accuse me of being anti–public sector.

The Jamaica Public Service Company (JPS) continues to send bills to customers who have been without electricity since Hurricane Melissa. What has the OUR said? Merely that it “urged the JPS to ensure the observation of good practice and reasonable consideration” in its billing. That’s not regulation, that’s suggestion. And it’s an insult to consumers already struggling to recover.

EXIST AS SYMBOLS

My own experience with the telecommunications companies further highlights the dysfunction. After days without the Internet, I learnt that consumers are only entitled to compensation if the outage lasts at least three days, and even then, the compensation isn’t automatic. You must call to report the outage at the beginning, call again when service is restored, and have the case number from the first report ready. Miss one step, and you get nothing.

So if your service was out for two days, no compensation. If you didn’t know to demand a case number, no compensation. If you didn’t call twice, no compensation. This nonsense has gone unchecked for years while the OUR and CAC remain comfortably asleep at the wheel.

Only Minister Daryl Vaz, to his credit, has at times appeared willing to push back against the status quo, though I imagine his hands are full with other responsibilities. But one must ask: Where are our regulators?

Regulators are meant to stand between consumers and corporate excess, not to issue polite press releases after the fact. In a country that desperately needs accountability and modernisation in governance, our regulatory bodies cannot continue to exist merely as symbols. They must act, innovate, and protect.

Until that happens, Jamaicans will continue to pay the price, literally and figuratively, for a system that regulates in name, but not in deed.

JAVON MOATT

Portmore, Jamaica