CLIVE MULLINGS
CLIVE MULLINGS, the Jamaica Labour Party's (JLP) spokesman on Mining, Energy and Telecommunications, says the current spat between the Bureau of Standards of Jamaica (BSJ) and the Jamaica Public Service Company (JPS) has been badly handled and should be resolved in court.
In a statement released yesterday, Mr. Mullings said JPS President Charles Matthew's statement that he has no plans to withdraw a lawsuit against BSJ to prevent it from testing its meters, shows that the situation has reached crisis proportions.
Mr. Matthews made his company's position clear Tuesday in a letter to Minister of Commerce, Science and Technology, Phillip Paulwell. It came one day after the minister announced that the stand-off between the Government agency and the utility company, had ended.
"For the minister to have issued such a release only to have it contradicted within a few hours, does not augur well and suggests an amateurish handling of a fundamental issue affecting the Jamaican public," the statement from Mr. Mullings read.
METERS TESTED ILLEGALLY
The JPS filed the lawsuit in April, claiming that the BSJ carried out tests on the company's meters illegally. In its defence, the BSJ said it acted under the Weights and Measures Act of 1976.
Management at the BSJ said they did this after many JPS customers complained of receiving unusually high bills last November.
