KUCHING: Sarawak Energy Berhad (SEB) will not take power outages lightly but are doing thorough investigations as well as learning from the incidences and maximising their efforts in improving their operation.
This was stated by SEB chief operating officer Lu Yew Hung in a media statement issued yesterday.
The statement acknowledges the concerns raised by the Malaysia Association for Shopping and Highrise Management (PPK) Sarawak and merchants concerning the impact of recent power outages to their businesses.
Lu said that they will immediately take an initiative to meet up with the concerned groups, listen carefully to their concerns and find ways on how SEB could improve their services to serve them better.
“At the same time, we could share with them the preventive measures and plans that SEB deploys to improve the reliability of our distribution system,” he said.
“Sarawak Energy respects our customers’ high expectations and we appreciate the opportunity for constructive dialogue. In the meantime, we will continue to do everything possible to ensure that interruptions to the power supply are minimised.”
It was reported in the media yesterday that major shopping malls here recorded an estimated loss of potential sales up to RM1 million during the frequent power outages between 2012 and early this year.
PPK Sarawak representative Ronald Ling was quoted as requesting SEB to ensure that electricity is sufficient to all consumers at all times, saying notice must be sent out to all residents and businesses via public announcement in the event of possibility of a blackout.
“We understand the challenges faced by SEB in serving an area as vast as Sarawak, but we rely on constant and reliable electricity so that we are able to provide our facilities and services to the public and generate income for tenants, government and thousands of workers in our shopping centres,” he was quoted as saying.
PPK has 300 shopping centre members throughout Malaysia. In Kuching alone, its members include Plaza Merdeka, Tun Jugah, Green Heights Mall, tHe Spring Shopping Mall, Hills Shopping Mall, The Summer Shopping Mall, CityOne and Eastern Mall.
The eight malls here have more than 1,000 retailers and tenants.