Hayles: NWC spends $1 billion monthly on power while water projects stall

Westmoreland Member of Parliament Ian Hayles told the House that Jamaica’s water utility is spending heavily on power while key water works lag, and he pressed for urgent energy-efficiency action and clearer investment priorities.

Addressing the Speaker, Hayles said that of 13 projects named by the minister, only one has been finished and nine have not begun. He argued the country should stop treating energy efficiency as talk alone, citing how vulnerable the system becomes during crises and disasters.

Over the next decade, he said, the Jamaica Public Service Company (JPS) should cease to be the main supplier of energy and operate more as a backup. To illustrate the stakes, he noted that the National Water Commission (NWC) spends an estimated $1 billion a month on electricity to pump water. Cutting that JPS bill by half through technology over 10 years, he said, could save the country as much as $60 billion — funds that could extend supply to more people in rural constituencies.

Hayles also pointed to a recent Auditor General’s report stating the NWC owes $33 billion and has about $5 billion in outstanding collections. He linked that debt burden to the utility’s difficulty paying bills, including its JPS account. According to the report as he cited it, in 2016–2017 the NWC held only 80 cents for every short-term dollar owed; by 2023–2024 that figure had fallen to 50 cents. Cash on hand, he said, is moving in the wrong direction, and he questioned board and government policy, saying that is no way to run a business.

Energy-efficiency measures, he insisted, are now critical. Turning to the minister’s call to mobilise investment in water, Hayles criticised what he called an ad hoc approach. He cited the Western Resilience project, valued at US$425 million, with phase one at US$176 million. That phase includes replacing the transmission main linking Montego Bay, the Great River treatment works, and the Queen of Spain Valley / New Martha Brae plant in Trelawny, where non-revenue water loss is put at about 71 per cent. Work is also planned along the corridor from Great River west through Lucea to the Negril strip, where losses are estimated at about 68 per cent.

Hayles said western Jamaica has not been told plainly that road and water upgrades along that corridor are meant to support further tourism growth, and he asked whether the approach was necessary or the most cost-effective. Recalling the minister’s 2024 stakeholder meeting in Negril, he said his first concern was whether Westmoreland has enough water for residential and tourism demand over the next 50 years.