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In Jamaica, over 450,000 low and middle-income households, which consume up to 200 kilowatt hours (kWh) of electricity per month, will receive a 20% contribution towards their bill payments over the next four months.
The announcement from Minister of Finance and the Public Service Dr. Nigel Clarke.
The initiative is being offered under the Government’s proposed We CARE Energy Co-Pay Programme, and is expected to largely benefit people earning smaller incomes, including vendors, security guards, housekeepers, household workers, bartenders, waiters, handymen, many occupations in the informal economy and hard-working Jamaicans on minimum wage or just above.
Minister Clarke says the programme, expected to cost approximately JMD$2 billion (USD$13 million), is being implemented as a temporary intervention to cushion the impact of higher electricity prices on the most vulnerable.
These increases have been sparked by hikes in global oil prices, largely fuelled by the conflict between Ukraine and Russia.
Dr. Clarke says the intervention, part of an overall JMD$3.7 billion (USD$24 million) package of social assistance support, will be extended to prepaid and postpaid Jamaica Public Service Company (JPS) customers between April and July.
This amounts to approximately 457,786 largely low-income households, or 81% of JPS customers.
He indicated that the target beneficiaries will also include some ‘middle’ bracket customers who, “while not particularly associated with lower incomes, are not associated with higher income either”.
The Minister also advised that prepaid JPS customers who pay in advance for small amounts of electricity at a time, will receive bonus credit from the government representing 20% of the top-up sum purchased.
