A report from IPS at http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=39630-
A staggering 27.6 billion ringgit (8.2 billion US dollars); that's the amount the Malaysian public has incurred through gas subsidies given out over the years to private power producers by national petroleum corporation Petronas.
Tenaga is forced to buy electricity from the private producers under terms widely seen as favourable to the IPPs – even though the country has a 40 percent spare capacity out of a total 19,000-megawatt generating capacity. In effect, Tenaga, which needs a reserve of only 15-20 percent, has to buy electricity it does not need, reportedly paying 3 billion ringgit annually in capacity charges.
Petronas is losing money by subsidising gas to the IPPs, and since Petronas is government owned, that means it is the Malaysian public that is subsidising the profitable IPPs.
Sarawakian need to ask "what all these got to do with us?" Tenaga doesn't supply electricity to Sarawak and we are actually paying more for the electricity consumption than our brothers and sisters in West Malaysia. But Petronas is State-owned and we contribute for a third of Petronas' oil and gas production which means we contibuted to 1/3 of the 27.6 billion ringgit or 9.2 billion ringgit subsidies.
Sarawak government and the federal government have ripped us off in almost everything and most of us are either been kept in the dark or we simply let them have a free hand in everything they do. Sarawak is the state that has been most supportive of the BN governmnet, from the past parliamentary elections, Sarawakian have proven their undivided loyalty to the Federal government with up to almost 100% support given to the BN. With that kind of support, we would presume that the Federal government would reciprocate and taking care of us. However, the state of development of Sarawak is far from equal to that of the Penisular with our infrastructure, medicare, educational facilities some 20 years behind.
I hope that Sarawakian would wake up to teh reality and stand firm in our demand to be treated justly and fairly. Let us not be the ostriches ourselves and hope that everything is fine and teh governmnet would come to their senses ond fine day and repay us for what we have lost out.
44 years ago on 16th September 1963, Sarawakian together with Sabahan and Singaporean chose to create Malaysia together with the Malay Penisular with the hope and aspiration that we will form a properous, just, democratic Malaysia that everyone would be proud of. We are still waiting for that to crystalize and many of us are crying in our hearts, just like the fish (Sarawakian) crying in the water (federal government), without being known and felt by our federal government.
David Wong
Dap Sarawak publicity sec.,
20-10-007
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