Even though the government sought to quell discontent by assuring that the recent electricity hike will not affect 70 percent of the population, all Malaysians will still feed the pinch on their pockets from the cascade effect, says Kedah PAS Youth chief Nasir Zakaria.

This, he said, is because factories producing goods consumes large amount of power and will be hit by the electricity hike, thus it is likely they will pass on the extra production cost to customers.

“The rakyat received a double whammy when the government raised the price of basic needs such as sugar and petrol, and now electricity - all of which are fundamental elements for businesses.

“These will create a chain effect which consumers will ultimately have to bear when they increase their prices due to increased costs,” he said in a statement today.

Furthermore, he said come April 2015, consumers who use more than RM70 in electricity will also have to pay the Goods and Services Tax (GST).

Yesterday, the government, when announcing a 15 percent and 16.9 percent electricity tariff hike for peninsula Malaysia and Sabah respectively, said it will only apply to consumers who use more than 300 kiloWatts of power or RM77 in electricity bill.

Energy, Green Technology and Water Minister Maximus Ongkili said this means 70.67 percent or 4.56 million of 6.45 million electricity consumers in Malaysia will not be affected.

'Spiralling cost of living'

tenaga nasional and electricity price Following the tariff hike, Nasir urged the government to disclose the purchase price agreement between Tenaga Nasional Berhad (TNB) from independent power producers (IPP), as well as the actual subsidy they receive from Petronas.

State-owned Petronas sells fuel to IPPs at subsidised prices for their power production.

Nasir said estimates showed that IPPs saved RM6.4 billion in 2011 and RM9.5 billion in 2012 through subsidised fuel, but sell electricity to TNB at market price.

In a separate statement, newly-minted PAS Youth chief Suhaizan Kaiat said the government was being insensitive to the needs to the people with the hike.

“There are still many people who are struggling with the cost of living and many still live below the poverty line,” he said.

He added that the hike being higher in Sabah was a worse deal, especially since the state constantly faced power outages.

Meanwhile, Sabah’s Sri Tanjong state assemblyperson Chan Foong Hin, in a statement today, took the state’s BN leaders to task for allowing the pay hike to go ahead.

“Sabahans, apart from having to pay much higher rate for basic infrastructures while having to settle for lower income compared to their counterparts (in peninsula Malaysia), these leaders (still) seem to be in agreement with the price hike of petrol,  sugar and now electricity tariff,” he said.