I do not agree with the writer of Allow Tenaga to increase electricity tariffs . It is a bailout for a management failure. It is the easiest path to bully the consumer in a monopoly situation rather than admitting their own failures.

When our former prime minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad implemented the privatisation projects, the objective could have been good. But the implementation was a mess. Lots of capital resources have been wasted when we go through the cycle of privatisation, nationalisation (bailing out) and privatisation again (sell to cronies again).

Look at Plus (Renong), MAS, the two light rail transit companies. A lot of the processes bypass government tenders and a lot of "capable people" suddenly make a lot of money.

It happens to Tenaga now. As a so-called privatised company, TNB has to look at various factors including the productivity of the employee, return on assets or investments, effectiveness of outsourcing activity, enforcement of checks on leakage/power-thefts, etc.

It would not take long for a money-savvy private company to make a quick calculation on the these mentioned factors. Although it is a listed company, TNB has inherited too many missteps. It was mismanaged and not run by professionals. It is still run by civil servants. If the culture of TNB is not to pursue excellence, it just ends up as another government department.

For it to raise overseas funding for local projects would incur risks as the rates would fluctuate according to overseas situations rather than domestic economic conditions.

I came across one report about the comparisons of each sector in the world, including energy and telecommunications. They use some benchmarks for comparison. One of them was revenue/ employee. If the government is so keen about KPI (key performance indicators), it is not that difficult to find out where the slack is in TNB.

We have been duplicating the same mistakes over and over again for privatised companies. Do you think a private company should have this kind of luxury over and over again? And how come the same government makes the same mistake over and over again? Food for our thought.