KOTA KINABALU: Likas assemblyman Junz Wong wants Infrastructure Development Minister Tan Sri Pairin to review the contracts of Independent Power Plants (IPPs) before giving more new IPP contracts.
Junz said IPPs made up 70.8 per cent of Sabah Electricity Sdn Bhd’s (SESB) total electricity cost, citing IPPs’ alleged lopsided contracts could be the reason why Sabahans were paying expensive electricity tariffs.
“The people have the right to know the contents of IPP contracts as we are ones paying,” he said.
Junz, who is also DAP Sabah organizing secretary, also suggested that IPP contracts be made on failure risk sharing basis.
“IPPs must share failure risks and be penalized if they have caused a power disruption. As of now, IPP contracts awarded in Sabah have no clear penalty nor escape clause. By right, failure to meet availability/contracted target should result in a reduction in the amount of capacity payment to IPPs.
“Alternatively, the BN state government could encourage SESB to build their own 300MW natural gas plant through parent company Tenaga Nasional Bhd (TNB).
“The state government should allocate land to TNB-SESB with Petronas’ full support on constructing the pipelines to the proposed sites,” he added.