From: Greenman
Subject: {SABAHkini} Is Leo Moggie & The Sabah Cabinet Misleading Sabahans?
To: "SABAHANS"
Cc: "Save Sandakan"
Date: Friday, May 29, 2009, 2:42 AM
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CORRUPTION is a HEINOUS CRIME - for it's a crime against the POOR, the DISABLED and the WEAKEST members of society and a crime AGAINST FUTURE GENERATIONS.
Friends,
The ecellent letter below speaks volumes as to the true situation on power generation and misleading statements by TNB / SESB & their short-sighted and arrogant Chairman Leo Moggie. Their coins seem to have only one side.
I don't think the PM misled Indonesia on Bakun power. TNB must have given the wrong facts and misled the PM.
Judge for yourself. Judge the Sabah Cabinet too - Save for the Chief Minster who came out strongly against the coal-fired power plant, the rest have been mute over the issue.
Are they mute by choice or by vice?
Are they holding true to the dictum of a corrupt entity: "I scratch your back, you scratch my back" & "You don't step on my toe, I don't step on your toe" ?
I do hope the CM is still with the people of Sabah in rejecting coal-fired power plants in Sabah. If he is still with the people of Sabah, he should rein-in his close associates and the whole Cabinet to fight the Mafia-might of TNB / SESB.
I again call upon the Cabinet to study the possibility of taking back SESB and putting it under a corporatised management via Yayasan Sabah or Warisan Harta.
Enough has been said - Come out NOW and make a clear and united stand - SAY NO TO COAL POWER - period, full-stop. No ifs or buts and no propping up of lame-ducks.
Let all Sabahans live and breathe in peace NOW and forever.
Failure to ACT NOW denotes a reluctance for reasons known only to themselves.
People:
When you are out and about and come across people who are dumb, deaf or blind - pity them not; for they are so by physical disabilities, not by choice - rather pity those who have eyes but refuse to see; who have ears but refuse to listen and have the gift of speech from God but choose to remain silent.
God Bless All.
SM Muthu
| Did Najib mislead Indonesia on Bakun project? |
| Ah On | May 27 '09 |
| For over a year now, the people of Sabah have been fiercely objecting to Tenaga Nasional Berhad's (TNB) proposal to set up a coal power plant in Sabah, allegedly to resolve the power shortage in the East Coast. MCPX Malaysiakini has covered the objections very well.
According to the Borneo Post on 26 May 2009, page A2 titled "Leo: Bakun unlikely to supply power to Sabah", Tan Sri Leo Moggie, the Chairman of TNB, claimed that: "I believe there may have been misreporting in the press. The Sarawak hydro power capacity is very substantial and the total capacity identified for Sarawak is 28,000 megawatt (MW), of which 2,400 MW is from Bakun, which is now under construction.
However, the power generated is committed for use in Sarawak as well as export to Peninsular so the prospect of utilising Bakun (for the East Coast of Sabah) does not seem to exist."
Really?
The 'export' of the electricity from Bakun Dam to Peninsular Malaysia has not been finalised yet. In fact, the plan on constructing the 700km under-sea cable from Bakun to Peninsular has just been approved by the Federal Cabinet.
Currently, Peninsular Malaysia still has about 40 percent reserve capacity, so the need for electricity in Peninsular Malaysia is not as urgent as in Sabah. It will take many years before the power supplied by Bakun is fully consumed by the Peninsular. Therefore, how is it correct to say that the Bakun capacity has been 'committed' already?
According to Leo Moggie, Bakun's capacity has been 'committed'. Yet, TNB still made the Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak their 'salesman' to sell the idea of Bakun exporting power to Indonesia, when Najib visited the Indonesian President in April.
So, if TNB (who partly owns the Bakun Dam project) can still manage to export the Bakun power to Indonesia, then how could it be correct for TNB's chairman Leo Moggie to claim that the capacity in Bakun has already been 'committed'?
Did the Borneo Post 'misreported' what Leo Moggie said? If not, then Najib must be lying when he said he proposed to export the ('already committed') electricity from Bakun to Indonesia. Between Najib and Leo Moggie, can the latter please clarify who was lying?
Therefore, why can't the proposed power to be exported to Indonesia - and not yet committed - be used by Sabah? Or Sarawak itself, for that matter.
In the same report, the Chief Executive Officer of TNB, Che Khalid Mohd Noh (who happens to be awarded CEO of the Year), has reportedly said that it would be very expensive to build a line from Bakun to the East Coast of Sabah and it would cost more than building a new power plant. Of course, Che Khalid must be thinking that the much longer 700km sub-marine 'terrains' of South China Sea from Sarawak to Johor are much easier to navigate?! As a matter of fact, the distance from Bakun Dam to Sandakan, East Coast of Sabah is only about 450km, much shorter than the undersea cable.
It is not necessary to construct a power grid all the way from Bakun Dam directly to the East Coast of Sabah. All that is needed is for the power grid from Bakun to connect to the West Coast of Sabah in the North, which is then transmitted to the East Coast via a now-under-construction West-East Grid from the southern part of Sabah via Ulu Padas-Serudong-Tawau. The first West-East Grid has already been completed and in use since 2007.
Nobody is asking TNB to construct a totally new and separate grid from Bakun to the East Coast of Sabah! Sabahans are not as stupid as some people would like to think.
Has TNB asked for tender or proposal from interested parties to bid for such an infrastructure project to connect the grid from Bakun to the West Coast of Sabah? If not, what is TNB's basis for saying that such a project is not viable? The fact that no such move was ever made by TNB makes us doubt the sincerity of TNB in resolving the power woes faced by Sabahans. The claim by Sabah Electricity Sdn Bhd's (SESB) managing director that SESB ‘CARES' increasingly sounds like classic hot-air by rich, socially irresponsible corporations.
On the other hand, let's not forget that the coal proposed to be used for the proposed coal power plant in the East Coast of Sabah would have to be imported from Indonesia. In other words, Sabah exports its clean natural gas to Bintulu, Sarawak, and Bakun exports its clean hydro power to Indonesia, in exchange for Sabah to import dirty coal from Indonesia. The plan is truly the work of a genius. I have no doubt that whoever approves of such a plan - Federal or State Government, TNB/SESB - truly loves Sabah..
So, in my opinion, all the reasons given for not tapping the capacity of Bakun hydro power for the use of the East Coast of Sabah are bogus, and designed to force the coal power plant down Sabahans' throats.
In subsequent media reports, TNB has also warned that the power-shortage problem will get worse if the East Coast coal power plant is not constructed soon. This is despite the fact that the total capacity of all existing power plants (not counting those currently under construction) in Sabah actually exceeds the daily demands in Sabah.
If TNB and its Sabah subsidiary, SESB, think that they can continue to insult the intelligence of Sabahans, then maybe it's time for some other electricity providers to come in. With the proliferation of independent power plants in the country, established companies such as YTL, Sime Darby, and Genting would have both the technology and resources to carry out the necessary infrastructure project to connect the grid from Bakun to the West Coast of Sabah.
Maybe it's time for Sabah government to seek an alternative to the DIRTY coal power -- by seeking an alternative to the bullying monopoly of TNB/SESB in the first place.  |
" All Men Are Brothers "
