OUR needs to keep us in the know
This is an open letter to Albert Gordon, the director general of the Office of Utilities Regulation.
IN YOUR response to my letter dated January 13, 2014, you confirmed that “the Office of Utilities Regulation (OUR) has received information pertaining to the due diligence on Energy World International (EWI) Limited”.
You also indicated that the OUR “has not engaged the assistance of any other entity to conduct due diligence other than that disclosed to the NIA in our letter of October 14, 2013”.
In that letter, your office indicated that “requests were made to Mr Felice and Major Johanna Lewin of FID (sic)”.
There is an obvious error because, as you are aware, while Mr Felice is “of the FID”, Major Lewin heads the Revenue Protection Division (RPD). In light of the above, I have to ask you to indicate whether the information regarding the due diligence on EWI, which you have received, emanates from an international entity contracted by either the Financial Investigations Division or the RPD. Surely, providing this information as to who is conducting, or has conducted, the due diligence is of fundamental importance to each and every household and business in Jamaica in so far as we wish to be assured, beyond any doubt, of the robustness of the exercise and hence, the basis for confidence in its conclusions.
Regarding your indication that public disclosure of information in your possession is not permitted because of the “strict confidential obligations under which the information was received and by which the OUR is bound”, such a commitment to keep the Jamaican people in the dark on a matter of fundamental public interest is being appropriately tested by an application from the Jamaica Civil Society Coalition under the Access to Information Act. The result of that application is being awaited with interest.
NO OBJECTION
Independent of that determination, however, I can see no objection to making a version of the report available – perhaps an executive summary – redacted to exclude “expressions of opinions and judgements that touch and concern the commercial reputation and character of the parties” involved.
Moreover, how can it be reasonable or justified for the OUR to withhold from the public Page 2 of your conclusions arising from your objective in commissioning a due diligence, namely, as you put it in your letter, to determine: “(a) if there are issues that disqualify EWI; and (b) if there are issues that give rise to the need for additional safeguards.”
Surely, making the general public aware of your assessment on both these points must be part of your obligation as a public entity regulating utilities in Jamaica and, surely, such could hardly be a violation of any confidentiality obligation into which, rightly or misguidedly, you have entered in this matter.
It must be completely in order, given the critical importance of the cost of energy to every household and business in Jamaica, to every investor, national or foreign, for us to know whether there are issues, technical or financial, that may lead you to doubt whether EWI can deliver what we all desire. It cannot be right to secretly have the general public waiting in the dark, only to discover down the road that the reservations that you may now entertain, ultimately prove to be of such substance as to deny us the affordable energy, without which the growth strategy we all need shall continue to elude Jamaica and the Jamaican people.