KOTA KINABALU: Kota Kinabalu Chinese Chamber of Commerce and Industry (KKCCCI) president Datuk Michael Lui yesterday expressed disbelief at the Minister of Energy, Green Technology and Water Datuk Seri Dr Maximus Ongkili’s statement that Sabah Electricity Sdn Bhd (SESB) was on the verge of insolvency.
He said this statement could evoke panic among the public and possibly affect the people’s confidence towards the government.
“The commercial and private sectors, as well as members of the public find this news hard to accept.
Tenaga Nasional Berhad (TNB) took over 82 per cent stake in SESB in the 1980s, while the State Government holds 18 per cent stake, he said.
Lui said Sabahans deserved to know the reason SESB was on the brink of insolvency.
“We believe that the State Government will look into this matter as electricity supply is a basic necessity for the
people.”
KKCCCI also urged the State Government to seriously consider taking over SESB.
Lui believed that there were Sabah-based companies with large capital which the State Government could consider bringing on board to ensure the operations of SESB would not be disrupted.
Maximus said the future of SESB would be determined following an ongoing discussion between the Energy, Green Technology and Water Ministry, Ministry of Finance and TNB.
The minister said the discussion was crucial, especially since SESB continued to make losses and on the verge of insolvency.
Meanwhile, Parti Keadilan Rakyat (PKR) Sabah urged the state government to come out with a white paper on SESB privatization fiasco.
Its chairman, Christina Liew, said this was necessary in order to ascertain what were the real contributing factors to the sorry state that SESB had come to, after close to two decades of privatization – on the verge of bankruptcy, as revealed by Maximus recently.
“The people of Sabah deserve to know the truth behind the SESB privatization fiasco. It’s rather outrageous that despite being the sole power supplier in the state, with a customer base of more than 600,000 people, SESB could end up in such a deplorable state, after close to two decades of privatization.
“With issuance of the white paper, we shall be able to ascertain whether the fiasco was really due to a higher energy generation cost incurred by SESB compared with the current average tariff, as what was revealed by Maximus, or was it due to a flawed privatization scheme right from the beginning, or mismanagement and some ‘hidden causes’ like unreasonable and exorbitant purchase of power supply from the Independent Power Producers (IPP),” said Liew who is also the PKR Sabah chairman-cum-Api-Api assemblywoman in a statement yesterday.
She also proposed that an independent forensic audit be carried out on SESB’s account, so as to get to the bottom of the fiasco.
While noting that the white paper should also provide solutions on how best to salvage SESB, she hoped it would include proposal for the state government to take it back and manage it.
“If Sarawak could manage its own power supply well, I believe we too should be able to do the same, unless of course there’s a ‘lopsided deal’ in place to benefit a privileged few,” she said.
Liew added that if Pakatan Harapan wins the coming general election and gets to form the new government, it would know what to do to turn SESB around.
She also regretted that until today, the management of SESB had not responded to her recent call for an independent inquiry into the death of its employees, altogether three of them, following an explosion and fire at the SESB substation at Wawasan Plaza late last month.
She said this inevitably raised question whether there was something to hide about the tragic incident.
She thus hoped the management of SESB could come forward to state its stand on this issue, without further delay.