KUCHING: Sarawak United People’s Party (SUPP) Youth has called the two recent blackouts in Kuching and Sri Aman within a week unforgivable and intolerable.
SUPP Youth secretary-general Wilfred Yap said the power outages caused total chaos for hundreds of thousands of people.
“This is even ironic given the fact that Sarawak is well known for its abundance of renewable energy and the state government has invested a huge sum of money into the development of hydropower plants.
“Our state government is selling affordable renewable energy to attract foreign investors and yet, we can’t even get this technical fault solved effectively. We have had some major power outages just last year, people and businesses suffered immensely because of that. Is this going to become a yearly event or a norm that the people have to endure?” he said in a statement yesterday.
Yap stressed that it is crucial to have consistent and reliable power supply in order to promote the state’s hydropower and attract foreign investors.
He said since Sarawak Energy Berhad (SEB) is the company in charge of power supply, it should prioritise the interests of the public.
“The impact of a major blackout of such magnitude is immense, it affects not only the everyday activities of the people, local businesses, schools, traffic users, etc were in total chaos,” he said.
“Chinese New Year is fast approaching, SUPP Central Youth is demanding SEB to give priority to ensuring reliable and consistent power supply throughout the state. The people and business owners will not tolerate another major blackout, especially when everyone is busy preparing and celebrating.”
Yap urged SEB to give equal focus to improving the standard of maintenance work on its existing network, especially on the Engkilili 275kV substation, as the past few major blackouts could be traced back to it.
“Not only that, I am also appealing to the state government to come up with a sustainable policy and calculation formula so that those from the commercial sector who suffered losses as a result of the blackout can be compensated accordingly.”
Kuching and Sri Aman were hit by power outages on Jan 9 and 14.
SEB chief operating officer Lu Yew Hung said both blackouts were caused by work at its Engkilili 275kV substation.
The blackout on Jan 9 was from 2.36pm to 4.46pm, while the one last Tuesday was from 11.42am to 2.28pm.