TNB left holding the Bakun undersea cable baby

 Accountability, Energy resources  11 Responses »
Dec 162008
 

Power demand is dropping as the economic slowdown creeps up on us, but TNB is being forced to pay more in capacity charges to IPPs and take over the laying of the Bakun undersea cables (to transmit even more electricity to the peninsula) after Sime Darby wisely pulled out.

By the way, TNB is 38 per cent owned by the Finance Ministry’s Khazanah and 14 per cent owned by EPF.  So guess who is ultimately bearing the risk? Us.

A political economist has sent the following comment to me.

TNB is complaining that Peninsula Malaysia is going to have 45 per cent excess capacity within the next eight months. TNB also says that this excess capacity is due to the Jimah IPP coming online in January 2009. Given the terms of the IPP between Jimah and TNB, TNB expects to see a drop of about RM500 million from their overall profit margin since the IPP contract cannot be re-negotiated. TNB actually also said that they do not need the excess power but have to buy it. See story here.

Amazingly, this is going to happen within the context of a decline in power demand in Peninsula Malaysia which is set to drop with the coming downturn..! See this power demand drop story here.

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 Posted by Anil Netto at 12.51pm  Tagged with: , , , , ,

A chicken thief and the Jimah power plant

 Accountability, Energy resources, Malaysian finance/business, Poverty  44 Responses »
Dec 132008
 

I suppose the story of a chcken thief who couldn’t recognise a chicken in court as the one he was alleged to have stolen was meant to provide some comic relief in the The Star. You are meant to chuckle or laugh when you read it.

But read the report more carefully and you will see that the accused had to support his family on RM25 a day. That’s about RM750/month, putting the household on the threshold of the official poverty line. Nothing to laugh about there. And he gets three months jail for stealing a chicken.

Now we shouldn’t condone even petty theft.

But we all know how difficult it is for any household to survive on less than RM1,500/month or even more, let alone RM750.

How about poverty in a land of plenty? Do we condone that?

My question now: what is the penalty for those who are now allowing TNB to bleed RM500 million in “capacity charges” over the next eight months by allowing an IPP to operate a power plant (Jimah) to provide electricity that the country doesn’t need? The Jimah plant, which will be operational in January, will raise the country’s power reserve margin to 45 per cent. The CEO of TNB says the country doesn’t need the power and can do without it. Who will profit from the Jimah power plant?

Will anyone be hauled up to account for this?

The Star

Friday December 12, 2008
Chicken thief couldn’t recognise bird

IPOH: A man who admitted to stealing a chicken got amused looks in a magistrate’s court here when he could not recognise the same bird brought to him for identification.

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 Posted by Anil Netto at 8.47am  Tagged with: , , , ,