The Jamaica Public Service Company Ltd (JPS) is assuring residents of Tivoli Gardens that their electricity supply will be connected quickly.

While not giving a timeline, the JPS yesterday said residents of the west Kingston community who have signed up to the new system would be connected "in the shortest possible time".

The company said it has completed the construction of the Residential Automated Metering Infrastructure in the community.

According to the JPS, it has started undertaking the second phase of a two-part exercise in which persons who had taken steps to regularise their electricity supply were removed from the old network and transferred to the new tamper-proof system.

The JPS statement came as residents of Tivoli complained bitterly about being left in the dark for days.

"Mi pay the more than $4,000 that them tell mi to pay, get mi house wired and passed and them say mi have to pay a further $1,500 to connect, but mi have to wait on one of them representatives to come and two days now mi without light," one Tivoli Gardens resident told The Gleaner yesterday.

Snail's pace

"Mi willing fi pay the $1,500, but two days now mi living in darkness and when mi go to them office, them send mi home and all now nobody don't come," said the resident, even as a JPS crew was seen connecting electricity to a house on a nearby street.

Other residents echoed the concerns and accused the company of moving at a snail's pace in getting them officially connected to the tamper-proof system.

However, the JPS argued that it was continuing its work in the community and "is working closely with community leaders and residents to assist those persons who signed up after the original deadline or had other unresolved matters pertaining to their electrical supply".

This comes almost six months after the JPS followed the security forces into Tivoli Gardens where scores of residents were connected to its system without paying electricity bills.