POWER SAFETY: Wong (seated third left) is seen in a photo call with SEB senior manager (safety) Ngu Piew Choo (third right), while Sesco central zone manager Ha How Ching is seated at right.
SIBU: Power theft in the state has now reached a serious level, resulting in Sesco losing about RM100 million per year.
As such, Sarawak Electricity Berhad (SEB) was making every effort to overcome the problem, said its general manager (shared services) Polycarp Wong.
“We have been working with the various authorities besides educating the public and school children on this matter,” he told a press conference after he officiated at the ‘Sarawak Energy Corporate Health and Safety Week Campaign 2011’ at Sesco central region office in Deshon Road here yesterday.
He said Sibu recorded the highest number of power theft, contributing some 40 per cent of the loss at between RM40 million and RM50 million per year.
Explaining that Kuching, Miri and Bintulu also reported rampant cases of similar thefts, he said they were committed by individuals, pubs, supermarkets and factories, while not discounting the involvement of insiders.
On cable theft, he said its frequency depended much on the changes in the price of metal, revealing that the 351 cable thefts from August last year until this month had caused SEB losses amounting to RM1.7 million.
“We also wrote to scrap metal buyers not to simply accept items sold to them,” he said, while calling on the public to be the
eyes and ears of SEB to curb power and cable thefts. On the campaign, he said it was an annual event for SEB to promote safe work practices among its employees to ensure their safety and well-being. Besides being one of the focus areas of SEB’s transformation programme, he said it was also to educate the public, whereby last year SEB conducted safety talks in 69 schools and 37 villages and longhouses in the state.
“Similar efforts are being undertaken by all our regional offices and our safety division to reach out to more schools, villages, longhouses, government departments, government linked companies, contractors and so on,” he said.
SEB, he said, was also concerned with the increasing number of electrical accidents involving the public.
“On average, there are four incidents involving the public every year in the last five years,” he said.