Pakatan Rakyat has set up 2014 Alternative Budget Committee in July 2013 and already held several meetings to draft the 2014 Alternative Budget. This Press Statement forms the series of PCs setting agenda ahead of 2014 Budget. Bayan Baru MP Sim Tze Tzin is the coordinator for Alternative Budget Committee for Ministry of Energy, Green Technology and Water (KeTTHA).<\/p>\n
KeTTHA plays an important role in ensuring the quality of electricity supply is efficient and safe. The ministry also aims to minimize negative impact of usage and electricity supply on environment. These are good objectives. However the current government failed to achieve its target.<\/p>\n
In the upcoming proposed Federal Budget 2014, the ministry must address 3 important questions surrounding KeTTHA.<\/p>\n
1. Will TNB raise the tariffs in 2014?<\/p>\n
TNB president and CEO Datuk Seri Azman Mohd has recently announced that TNB is proposing to the government a tariff increase for domestic users of more than 200 kWh as a direct result of the fuel price hike. Comes the federal Budget 2014, the rakyat wants to know whether the government is going to raise the tariff. Whether BN is truly Barang Naik in Budget 2014.<\/p>\n
Pakatan Rakyat has always proposed a review of TNB contracts with the IPPs. With the low cost structure and high profit margin, the IPPs are making huge profit based on unfair practices. They charge TNB exorbitantly, while benefiting from subsidized LNG from Petronas at the same time. The contracts with IPPs must be renegotiated to ensure that the people\u2019s interest are given equal weight and does not only benefit the private lucrative businesses. However, with the emergence of 1MDB as a big IPP player in the energy industry, things have become more complicated. Will KeTTHA ministry do major reforms that could potentially hurt certain parties\u2019 interests? Does KeTTHA have the political will to tackle these difficult issues?<\/p>\n
2. Why is Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) sold at a 80% discount price to Independent Power Producers (IPPs), while the petrol price for the Rakyat increased?<\/p>\n
The discount given to the IPPs represents a huge lost of revenue for the Malaysian Government. IPPs in Malaysia rely heavily on LNG to produce power. According to a World Bank report, 69% of Peninsula Gas utilisation was on power generation. Since 1997, the government has set a fixed price on gas that is sold to IPPs. In 2012, the market price of Malaysian LNG was at RM49.12 per million BTU, but the government fixed the price at RM10.70 for IPPs. In other words, IPPs are getting a whopping 80% discount from market rate LNG. According to research, this form of subsidy amounts to astonishing RM19 billion a year. Can the government explain why they cannot strengthen the terms of IPPs contract to channel the revenue back to the people?<\/p>\n
In budget 2014, the rakyat wants to know why government raised their petrol price instead, but not LNG price for the IPPs.<\/p>\n
3. Will SEDA increase Feed-in Tariff for Renewable Energy (RE) to 2%?<\/p>\n
The government has targeted to raise energy mix for RE up to 5.5% by 2015 or an equivalent of 985 Mega Watt, and eventually 4000 MW of RE in 2020. These are noble objectives. KeTTHA had set up a Sustainable Energy Development Authority (SEDA) to implement FiT mechanism for RE.<\/p>\n
Recently, SEDA has proposed to raise Feed-in-Tariff (FiT) for RE up to 2% for electricity usage above 300 kWh. This is to increase RE funds for future FiT projects. The proposal is now with KeTTHA and the cabinet must decide in Budget 2014.<\/p>\n
SEDA has so far failed to deliver significant results. In 2013, only 2MW of FiT quota were released to individual holders. And as of July 2013, only 112.44 MW were connected to the grid. This is a far cry from the 985 MW objectives in just 2 years. <\/p>\n
To raise the Feed-in-Tariff (FiT) from 1% to 2% for electricity usage above 300 kWh, SEDA has not been able to prove the effectiveness of the first 1% tariff. If sizeable FiT are given to crony companies, how can the rakyat trust the authority to implement RE policies fairly to help Malaysia achieve the green target? In fact, many companies have failed to deliver their projects, but quotas were not retracted.<\/p>\n
With SEDA in such condition, Pakatan Rakyat is doubtful that SEDA should be given additional 1%. We want SEDA to show significant improvements in implementing FiT projects. It has to be transparent in granting quotas and ensure successful implementation of these projects.<\/p>\n
Pakatan Rakyat is all for clean and efficient RE energy. We are ready to push for extra FiT, but KeTTHA must commit to clean up the misallocation and administrative inefficiencies in Budget 2014.<\/p>\n
Pakatan Rakyat will announce our 2014 Alternative Budget in October. We will contest Barisan Nasional Budget with better ideas. We will announce our structural budgetary reforms and corrective fiscal measures, to ensure fiscal sustainability and quality of life for the rakyat.<\/p>\n
Sim Tze Tzin \u6c88\u5fd7\u52e4 MP for Bayan Baru (PKR)
\nDr. Ong Kian Ming MP for Serdang (DAP)
\nDr. Che Rosli Che Mat MP for Hulu Langat (PAS)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Pakatan Rakyat has set up 2014 Alternative Budget Committee in July 2013 and already held several meetings to draft the 2014 Alternative Budget. This Press Statement forms the series of PCs setting agenda ahead of 2014 Budget. Bayan Baru MP Sim Tze Tzin is the coordinator for Alternative Budget Committee for Ministry of Energy, Green […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":15261,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[],"better_featured_image":{"id":15261,"alt_text":"","caption":"","description":"C","media_type":"image","media_details":{"width":640,"height":296,"file":"2013\/09\/kettha.jpg","filesize":34575,"sizes":{},"image_meta":{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"?????????????????????????????????????????????????????????","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"0","keywords":[]}},"post":15260,"source_url":"https:\/\/buletinonlines.net\/v7\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/09\/kettha.jpg"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/buletinonlines.net\/v7\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15260"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/buletinonlines.net\/v7\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/buletinonlines.net\/v7\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buletinonlines.net\/v7\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buletinonlines.net\/v7\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15260"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/buletinonlines.net\/v7\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15260\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buletinonlines.net\/v7\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15261"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/buletinonlines.net\/v7\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15260"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buletinonlines.net\/v7\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15260"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buletinonlines.net\/v7\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15260"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}