Warisan to form Sabah Electricity Watchdog

KOTA KINABALU (Jan 23): Parti Warisan will set up Sabah Electricity Watchdog to ensure that consumers and investors in the state do not suffer from electricity issues.

Its vice president, Datuk Junz Wong, said among the terms of reference for this watchdog are to receive and attend to, including investigating the complaints received from the general public and consumers, including investors on any electricity problems or issues throughout Sabah.

The watchdog team will also look into the “lopsided” Independent Power Producers (IPPs) that are entrusted with the responsibility to supply quality power to Sabah consumers and investors but do not fulfil their paramount responsibilities properly.

“This team also receive complaints from the general public on any irregularities in SESB committed by the SESB board members, management and staff and pass the matter to the relevant authorities for investigation.

“We also receive complaints from the general public on any irregularities in IPP committed by the IPP board members, management and staff and pass the matter to the relevant authorities for investigation,” he said at a press conference on Tuesday.

The team also wants to receive genuine complaints from SESB staff on any irregularities found in SESB and to receive genuine complaints from IPP staff on any irregularities found in the IPP plant.

The structure of the Sabah Electricity Watchdog will be headed by Sri Tanjung assemblyman Justin Wong Yung Bin as the chairman.

Meanwhile, Junz urged the GRS government to abolish the Imbalance Cost Pass-Through (ICPT) mechanism.

He said the service provided by Sabah Electricity Sdn Bhd (SESB) to the people of Sabah is very much below the standard that is required and not at par with any major such utilities in Malaysia. With that reason, ICPT, that was implemented since 2014 to reflect charges in the cost of electricity generation should be abolished immediately.

“Many Sabahans are suffering from such unreasonable and very poor quality of services.

“Warisan Sabah has noticed these very poor quality of services compared to the supply and services Tenaga Nasional Berhad (TNB) and Sarawak Energy Berhad (SEB) provide for their consumers.

“The electricity consumers of Sabah are also complaining and suffering in many ways because of these type of poor quality of electricity supply and services.

“Investors are also driven away from Sabah because of this type of quality of supply and services. No investor would want their business to suffer from or deprived from basic business needs when they intend to invest hundreds of million or billions of Ringgit Malaysia in Sabah,” he said.

To address such important issues effectively, Junz also said there is a need of good platform to deal with such problems and return better deals to the electricity consumers and the investors in Sabah.