Electricity has been restored to almost all households in Dominica following Hurricane Maria.
When the Hurricane made landfall on Dominica on September 18, last year it downed a number of electricity polls leaving the entire country without power.
But Member of the Board of Directors of Dominica Electricity Services (DOMLEC), Frederica James, said during the launching ceremony of the company’s customer service charter held at the company’s conference room in Fond Cole on Friday, that at present 27,900 customers have been since reconnected.
Prior to Hurricane Maria, DOMLEC had 36,500 customers on its system.
“To-date almost every community has access and 27, 900 customers are reconnected which is about 76 percent of the Pre-Maria figure,” she revealed. “To better appreciate these last statistics, we must recognize that there is still a very large number of houses that are not yet in a position to be reconnected or just abandoned.”
James stated that it was DOMLEC’s commitment to its mission promise that drove the company to achieve those remarkable results.
According to her, power at the Princess Margaret Hospital (PMH), was restored on October 5th, 2017, a mere 17 days after Hurricane Maria while other essential services were restored very shortly thereafter.
Meanwhile, Commercial Manager at DOMLEC, Paul Moses, said although almost every community in Dominica is energized and has power there are still a few pockets where customers in certain areas are not yet in the position to receive power.
“Some of them the power haven’t reached them, but even now as we speak DOMLEC’s linesmen are engaged in restoring power,” he noted.
For those customers who still do not have power, Moses is calling on them to be patient.
“Domlec makes promises and if one is reasonable and recognizing where we were from zero customers on September 19th 2017 to 27,000 now, we have come a long way,” he said.
Moses said some of the customers who are not yet served with electricity have issues.
“Some of them have not gotten their properties certified because some of them have standards to meet, as I mentioned, IRC [Independent Regulatory Commission] indicated certain standards and among the standards are safety standards,” he explained.
He continued, “Domlec will not connect a property that had not been certified as safe to receive power.”
Moses encouraged those customers who properties are not yet ready, to ensure that they are certified, “And we will eventually get to you.”
liessss
n why put back them yellow lights?
The electricity company needs a helicopter for the placement of poles in remote areas. Much easier to lift the pole into position with a helicopter than bringing in with a truck and using a crane. The helicopter can fly the pole in and lower it into the hole much safely. The company should be able to afford one helicopter as long as they do not pass the cost on to the customers. One main drawback it may not work because of the terrain.
After a year, almost every household. haha. After a year they didn`t even provide electricity to all the houses. It`s ridiculous. This means that there are still people who doesn`t have electricity for more then a year. We live in 2018 not the middle ages. Don`t be proud.
Sounds like you live in ignorance…these are men going out to restore power not machine jack in the box😠
Take your head from the sand where it is buried; just ask Puerto Rico, an American territory.
If you have lived on DA for any length of time, you know that nothing is ‘on time’ or as projected.
tell us why Ross depature is weighing on our bills Domlec..
Please tell us about the lost revenue which causes the fuel surcharged to then be shared amongst the rest of Dominica excluding picard?
What an expression for a commercial manager!…Smile
i remember when it was said every customer will have power by April 2018 i knew it was not realistic but hands of to Domlec they still restored more peoples electricity by the end of 2018 than i expected.
Meanwhile Flow and Digicel, continuing to suck people dry with data….
If they had a soul they would give people the same rate as if it was fixed landline internet, until they reconnect people, instead of those crazy data rates…