OUR presses layered disaster risk financing for utilities after Melissa losses

The Office of Utilities Regulation (OUR) is pressing for a multi-layered disaster risk financing framework across Jamaica’s electricity, water and telecommunications industries, arguing that the scale of post-hurricane restoration costs means the sector should move beyond improvised funding.

Addressing the regulator’s twelfth annual Director General stakeholders engagement on 19 March, OUR Director General Mr Hewitt said Hurricane Melissa in 2025 had underlined losses running into billions of dollars when networks must be rebuilt. He said restoring electricity, water and telecommunications after that storm had each carried a heavy price tag, underscoring why the sector cannot lean indefinitely on ad hoc funding. He sketched how utility-sector financing should be arranged so operators have a genuine safety net, or at least clear pathways to secure extra money when disasters strike.

In that vein, the OUR is backing public–private partnerships to deliver more resilient infrastructure, the study and use of resilience bonds, access to concessional climate finance, and stronger incentives for private capital in renewable generation and storage so long-run exposure is reduced.

Mr Hewitt also stressed that overseas developments increasingly steer domestic utility performance. “We must also confront the reality that global events increasingly shape local utility outcomes,” he said.

After Melissa, the OUR signed off emergency steps that included US$40.7 million from the Electricity Disaster Fund for JPS and five billion Jamaican dollars in relief for the National Water Commission through withdrawals from the K Factor Fund together with a six-month pause on deposits into that fund.

He repeated the call for financing instruments such as public–private partnerships, concessional climate funding, resilience bonds, and deeper investment in renewables paired with storage.