The government says it will not be considering any move to raise electricity tariff rates in Sabah until the power supply situation stabilises and power failures reduced in the state.

Announcing this today, Minister of Energy, Green Technology and Water Peter Chin Fah Kui said to reduce the financial burden of Sabah Electricity Sdn Bhd (SESB), the government will also provide assistance to ensure that SESB can continue to carry out its operations and provide electricity supply effectively.

"This is a government decision at cabinet level. Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak himself has made it a point that the System Average Interruption Duration Index (SAIDI) which is the index for the number of minutes of interruption that is experienced by a consumer will be reduced from the present high level of 2,870 minute/consumer annually to 700 minute/consumer annually by the end of this year.

"This is a drastic reduction. Until we are able to achieve that, the government has promised that the electricity rates will not be increased," he said following the launch of energy related seminar and expo in Kota Kinabalu today.

In December, Chin had said a new electricity tariff rate might be introduced in January if the cabinet approves it as the rate is due for revision every six months in line with the price of oil.

Unchanged for 23 years

Nevertheless, Chin said there was no guarantee that the tariff rates in Sabah, the lowest in Malaysia and unchanged in the last 23 years, would remain at the present rates in view of the increasing price of power generation.

Asked on why there had been no change in the problem of power supply in Sabah, Chin said that investments in electricity in Sabah had been low in the past and the state was still using old systems involving inefficient generators and high cost.

"About 49 percent of power supply in Sabah is generated from small power plants that use diesel or medium fuel oil (MFO) as fuel sources. The plants are older than 20 years, economically not viable and with reduced capacity.

"Now you can see we have been talking about changing the system from diesel or MFO to either gas or like in the west coast case, we are proposing coal which is more efficient and less costly," he said.

"All these need time, two to five years for any plant to put up, there is a time lapse and if we don't have prior investments, then we will have this situation. Of course now we are catching up and putting more and more investments," he explained.

- Bernama