Manufacturers pleaded with Putrajaya today to reduce and delay the \u201chuge\u201d 16.85 per cent hike in electricity rates for the industrial sector that they say were already bracing for coming challenges.<\/p>\n
The Federation of Malaysian Manufacturers (FMM) said that the \u201clarge\u201d increase in the electricity tariff would hit businesses hard amid pressures from minimum wage and minimum retirement age policies, as well as an impending rise in gas pricing and other proposals like unemployment insurance.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe manufacturing sector is disappointed with the huge 16.85 per cent increase in electricity rates for the industrial category and the effective date, which is only one-months\u2019 notice,\u201d FMM said in a statement today.<\/p>\n
\u201cFMM hopes that the government could reconsider lowering the quantum of increase, as well as extending the effective date to give users time to mitigate the higher cost of doing business,\u201d it added.<\/p>\n
The electricity tariff in the peninsula will increase by 14.9 per cent or 4.99 sen to 38.53 sen for every kilowatt per hour (kWh), and 5 sen for Sabah and Labuan, effective January 1 next year.<\/p>\n
Energy, Green Technology and Water Minister Datuk Seri Dr Maximus Ongkili, however, said that there would be no increase for electricity usage below 300 kWh, which would cover 70 per cent of households in the peninsula and 60 per cent of those in Sabah and Labuan.<\/p>\n
Of the 4.99 sen increase in the peninsula, the minister said 0.9 sen or 2.69 per cent will go to cover Tenaga Nasional Berhad\u2019s (TNB) increase in capital and other management costs; the rest was a reduction in fuel subsidies.<\/p>\n
Ongkili said the hike in Sabah and Labuan, which will average 16.9 per cent or 34.52 sen per kWh, was needed to narrow the gap between generation costs and current tariff rates to allow Sabah Electricity Sdn Bhd to maintain its service levels.<\/p>\n
Separately today, Consumers Association of Penang (CAP) president SM Mohamed Idris urged Putrajaya to review its agreements with independent power producers (IPPs) in light of the increase to power tariffs.<\/p>\n
\u201cIPPs have agreements until 2016, 2020. If you look back at CAP reports on IPPs, we\u2019re saying that they\u2019ve earned all their money many years ago,\u201d Idris told The Malay Mail Online today.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey should review all these IPPs. Tenaga should be able to handle the whole thing,\u201d he added, referring to the national electricity utility company, Tenagan Nasional Berhad (TNB).<\/p>\n
Idris also stressed that government offices should cut down on excessive air-conditioning to save electricity, saying: \u201cIt\u2019s so cold that you can freeze in there.\u201d<\/p>\n
Datuk Paul Selvaraj, secretary-general of the Federation of Malaysian Consumers Association (Fomca), advised the federal government to reveal the classified IPP agreements in order to assuage public anger on the subsidy rationalisation exercise.
\n– See more at: http:\/\/www.themalaymailonline.com\/malaysia\/article\/too-much-too-soon-manufacturers-say-off-power-rate-hike#sthash.mMS82Ww0.dpuf<\/p>\n
\u201cBecause of perception by the people, they feel this is not fair. It\u2019s very important for the government to give clear and important knowledge on how the government is getting the best prices for the people,\u201d Paul told The Malay Mail Online.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey must build confidence that there will be no more leakages, no more wastages. When you bring about these kind of changes, it\u2019s the responsibility of the government to provide better governance. If not, people are not going to be happy,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n
During his announcement today, Ongkili denied the increase would benefit the IPPs and called the perception a \u201cmyth\u201d.<\/p>\n
The minister said the subsidy reduction meant an estimated RM4 billion in savings for Petronas, which in turn will translate to dividends to the government.<\/p>\n
Despite the cut in subsidies, the minister said Putrajaya was still effectively losing RM14 billion each year on subsidies for power generation and rebates.<\/p>\n
Ongkili further announced that there will be an increase in collection for the Renewable Energy fund from 1 per cent to 1.6 per cent effective January 1 in the peninsula.<\/p>\n
The 1.6 per cent collection will also be introduced in Sabah and WP Labuan, and will be payable by all electricity consumers, except for domestic consumers who use less than 300kWh a month.<\/p>\n
Sarawak\u2019s power tariff is exempted from today\u2019s announcement because the state\u2019s energy sector is regulated by a state enactment, so they run power on their own, the minister said.<\/p>\n
The last increase in electricity tariff was in June 2011, when the subsidised gas price was raised to RM13.70 per million metric British thermal unit from RM10.70 mmbtu previously.-themalaymailonline<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Manufacturers pleaded with Putrajaya today to reduce and delay the \u201chuge\u201d 16.85 per cent hike in electricity rates for the industrial sector that they say were already bracing for coming challenges. The Federation of Malaysian Manufacturers (FMM) said that the \u201clarge\u201d increase in the electricity tariff would hit businesses hard amid pressures from minimum wage […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":17381,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[],"better_featured_image":{"id":17381,"alt_text":"","caption":"","description":"","media_type":"image","media_details":{"width":600,"height":519,"file":"2013\/12\/articlesElectricity-Tariffs_0212_600_519_100.jpg","filesize":199911,"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":17380,"source_url":"https:\/\/buletinonlines.net\/v7\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/12\/articlesElectricity-Tariffs_0212_600_519_100.jpg"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/buletinonlines.net\/v7\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17380"}],"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=17380"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/buletinonlines.net\/v7\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17380\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buletinonlines.net\/v7\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17381"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/buletinonlines.net\/v7\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17380"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buletinonlines.net\/v7\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17380"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buletinonlines.net\/v7\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17380"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}