Reduce outage and enhance work practices in Malaysia

We call on Tenaga Nasional Berhad (TNB) Malaysia to reduce further electricity outage, raise operational efficiency, and enhance work practices, utilization of information technology and coordination of system operation and maintenance.

Statement by Dr Tan Seng Giaw, DAP National Deputy Chairman and MP for Kepong on the service of the electricity provider, Tenaga Nasional Berhad on 17.9.2005.

TNB maintains that interruption of electricity supply has gone down. For example, it quotes the System Average Interruption Duration Index (SAIDI) as 281 minutes/customer/year in 2001 and 149 in 2003. Clearly, the incidence of blackouts in some areas has not increased. But, in others such as Jinjang, Kuala Lumpur, Sections SS2 and SS3, Petaling Jaya, it is still bad.

TNB has to review the correlation between SAIDI and the actual number of outages. It should reduce the inconvenience on the consumers.

On 15 September, 2005, the Minister for Energy, Water and Communications Datuk Seri Dr Lim Keng Yaik made allegations against TNB such as regarding frequency of interruptions, employees purposely delaying repair works to claim overtime, attitude towards customers, and delay in application for connections of electricity. Next day, Amalgamated Union of TNB Employees lodged a police report against the Minister at the Brickfields police station to clarify matters. The Government must institute an enquiry immediately on the above-stated allegations to find out the truth.

Electricity supply in Malaysia needs improvement, including meeting the increased consumption and improving the quality of the system. The peak demand per annum has reached over 13,000 megawatts (MW) and the electricity generation capacity is about 19,000 MW. Ensuring generation capacity is one thing, and providing a better service is another.