PUTRAJAYA: Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad has returned to his office at Perdana Putra amidst the political storm raging over the last two days.
The vehicle ferrying him was seen approaching the protocol gate here at 9.29am on Tuesday (Feb 25).
This comes a day after the 94-year-old Dr Mahathir resigned as Prime Minister, when the Yang di-Pertuan Agong accepted his resignation.
However, the King has consented for Dr Mahathir to continue running the country as interim Prime Minister until a new premier has been appointed and a new Cabinet formed.
Dr Mahathir is the only one from the Pakatan Harapan administration who is left after the Yang di-Pertuan Agong cancelled the appointments of all Cabinet members.
Aside from ministers, the duties of other members the administration including the deputy prime minister, deputy ministers and political secretaries ceased, effective Feb 24.
It is learnt that ministers have packed their belongings and left with them on Monday (Feb 24) night, following the announcement that the King had accepted Dr Mahathir's resignation.
Regardless of who Malaysian prime minister will be, he
will have vision and goals for economic development, which China,
especially through its BRI, can offer. It is expected that Malaysia's
next state leader will cooperate with China. And the same can be said of
other Southeast Asian nations.
KUALA LUMPUR: Tenaga Nasional Bhd (TNB) has admitted that a recent technical glitch is among the reasons for the sudden surge in utility bills.
TNB president and chief executive officer Amir Hamzah Azizan, who held a press conference yesterday, was apologetic and promised to investigate and resolve the issue as soon as possible.
Amir said the technical glitch between May 15 and May 20 caused a slight disruption to the system but it had since been resolved.
“Between May 15 and May 20, the system has been operationalised in stages so we can ensure we can (provide) service to the customers as fast as we can.
“By May 20, everything was back in operation. Some customers may have been billed for extra days (causing a hike in the bill),” he told the media.
Amir urged consumers to lodge a report if they noticed any discrepancies in their bills.
He vowed that TNB would investigate and address their complaints.
Amir said in April alone, the utility company received 5,621 complaints but this almost doubled to 9,028 in May.
“This brings the total number of complaints to 14,469 reports and from this, 11,331 have been resolved.
“We would also like to repeat our stand that TNB will keep its promise to investigate the reports.
“If there is evidence that we did overcharge, we will credit the amount back to our customers’ accounts,” Amir said.
He said a special task force, led by TNB’s chief retail officer Megat Jalaluddin Megat Hassan, had been formed to oversee the complaints and resolve the issue.
Megat Jalaluddin said that it usually took about two weeks to credit the amount back to consumers but it could be delayed due to the large number of complaints received.
Amir said other reasons for the sudden surge in electricity bills include old and faulty TNB meters, replacement of new meters and increased usage in the consumer’s household.
He also assured consumers of uninterrupted electricity supply, especially during Hari Raya.
“To those who have lodged reports or ongoing investigations, we assure that the disconnection notice will be postponed for two weeks.
“We would like everyone to have a peaceful Hari Raya celebration,” he said.
Amir said the operation hours of TNB offices would be extended from 8am to 6pm from Monday to Saturday, except for public holidays.
As for the TNB Careline, the hours will be extended from 7am to 11pm every day including public holidays, except for Sunday.
This is to help facilitate complaints from consumers and to help resolve their billing issues as soon as possible.
On comments by Energy, Science, Technology, Environment and Climate Change Minister Yeo Bee Yin that TNB would be fined even after it rectifies the billing problem, Amir said at the moment the utility company would focus on fixing the problem.
“My focus is to resolve this issue, we will talk about other issues later. The consumers are our priority,” he said.
During an interview on 8TV’s Global Watch programme on Thursday, Yeo said the Energy Commission had already given TNB a warning letter and an instruction notice to resolve the problem.
KUALA LUMPUR: Tenaga Nasional Bhd (TNB) should give a concrete explanation for the sudden discrepancies in electricity bills and take holistic steps instead of just depending on complaints from users, say consumer groups.
Consumers Association of Penang (CAP) education officer N.V. Subbarao said TNB, as the national utility company, must take responsibility instead of depending on consumers to come forward and lodge reports.
“TNB must do the due diligence. It will be unfair to those especially in the rural areas,” he said.
Federation of Malaysian Consumers Associations (Fomca) chief operations officer T. Saravanan said that while TNB wanted users to lodge complaints, the utility company needed to improve its customer service and response time.
He noted that TNB should explain why there was a technical glitch in its system.
“The problem should have been communicated to the public earlier and they should not have waited for the Energy Commission or Energy, Science, Technology, Environment and Climate Change Ministry to intervene,” he said.
He also noted that the Energy Commission should investigate the issue and publish its findings.
“An independent investigation team should be formed so that the findings won’t be biased.
“The Energy Commission should play an important role in protecting consumers,” said Saravanan.
Malaysian Islamic Consumer Association secretary-general Datuk Dr Ma’mor Osman said TNB’s explanation that the sudden increase in electricity bill was due to a technical glitch could not be accepted.
“The public cannot accept this as TNB has all the technology to check silly mistakes.
“TNB makes very high profits and they have monopolised the sector.
“If they do not give a satisfactory explanation, consumers will assume that they just want to make more money.
“If they know there is a glitch in the system, they need to inform all consumers.
“There is no point in blaming others for their wrongdoing,” he said.
Yeo said the high electricity bills problem was in most cases due to
TNB’s technical problem in billing the customers. — Picture by Saw Siow
Feng
https://youtu.be/Ap6DWFAg_gc
KUALA LUMPUR, May 31 — Energy supplier Tenaga Nasional Berhad (TNB) will still be fined even after it rectifies the billing problem which led to a sudden spike in electricity bills for consumers, minister Yeo Bee Yin has said.
Speaking in an interview during 8TV’s Global Watch programme yesterday, Yeo said the high electricity bills problem was in most cases due to TNB’s technical problem in billing the customers.
“The Energy Commission has already given them (TNB) a warning letter, and instruction notice, they must resolve the problem within 30 days and all who complained must have fair treatment,” the minister of energy, science, technology, environment and climate change said in an excerpt of the interview that was made available on Global Watch’s official Facebook page.
Yeo said TNB had already violated the Energy Commission’s standard for service levels, and that the energy company would still be penalised even if they corrected their wrong.
“Even if you corrected your wrong, you did wrong, you will be fined,” she stressed in the interview conducted in Mandarin.
Yeo said the Energy Commission is currently doing an investigation to determine which provisions of the Electricity Supply Act to fine TNB under.
“Next week or the following week, we will announce the provisions for the fine and teach them a lesson,” she said.
She noted TNB’s status as being the sole company providing electricity here.
“Because TNB is actually the sole company, you want to buy electricity, if you are unhappy, you must still buy from it.
“So I told the Energy Commission, you must grow fangs, you must regulate, so although they will correct the wrong, but there will certainly be a fine,” she added.- Malay Mail
Minister: Technical and billing issues also to blame for price spike
PUTRAJAYA: Negligence and technical fault on the part of Tenaga Nasional Bhd were two among three reasons why electricity bills spiked for certain consumers but the government is having none of it.
Energy, Science, Technology, Environment and Climate Change Minister Yeo Bee Yin, who disclosed this, said TNB must be made accountable for what happened or risk facing legal action from consumers.
“They are not just going to get a slap on the wrist but must be accountable for this and resolve the matter with consumers. Fail to do so and they will face legal action,” she told a press conference at her ministry yesterday.
Also present was Energy Commission chairman Datuk Ahmad Fauzi Hasan.
The Commission had met TNB earlier yesterday over the uproar among consumers in Melaka, and other parts of the country who complained of higher than usual power bills.
Besides the two reasons, Yeo said the other given was that consumers were billed for electricity usage for over 30 days when the standard procedure required the utility firm to issue bills for 30 days.
Yeo said the complaints on surge in power charges was from consumers nationwide and not just Melaka households involved in the smart meter pilot project by TNB.
Many consumers had vented their frustration on social media.
In May alone, more than 300 complaints were lodged with the Commission. This was 10 times more than the complaints in the same month last year.
Yeo said the Commission would play its part by investigating the complaints and submit its findings.
Asked whether the affected consumers should settle their dues first, the minister said she would discuss the issue with TNB and believed the problem could be resolved before the payment deadline.
On the smart meter issue, Yeo said the Commission was also investigating to find out what had gone wrong.
Melaka is among the pioneer states to introduce the smart meter and to date, over 300,000 households have already been fitted with it.
Chief Minister Adly Zahari was quoted as saying that he wanted TNB to ensure the system was implemented properly and to resolve several problems, including that the reading shown on myTNB was not the same as that on the meter.
A TNB spokesman said grievances from consumers would be addressed on a case-by-case basis, adding: “Our role is to listen, understand and serve our customers while upholding the law.”
TNB also inviteed consumers in Melaka with grouses to attend its Customers Day at its office in Jalan Banda Kaba which will be held until Friday (8.30am to 4pm daily).
It said each case would be investigated based on the electricity use pattern over the last six months.
The firm said it will also, upon investigation, credit any surcharge to the consumer’s account, in the event of overcharging or when excess reading had occurred.
Alternatively, customers can contact the TNB Careline at 1300-88-5454 or visit any TNB office in Alor Gajah, Bandar Jasin, Merlimau and Urban Transformation Centre (UTC) at Jalan Hang Tuah.
Meanwhile, Domestic Trade and Consumer Affairs Minister Datuk Seri Saifuddin Nasution Ismail said the Cabinet was the best avenue to discuss the issue of irregular electricity billing and the solution to it.
He believed Yeo would most likely be asked to explain the matter in today’s Cabinet meeting.
“I have received a lot of Whatsapp messages on this matter. The reaction we have received was nationwide,” Saifuddin said after chairing his ministry’s monthly assembly here yesterday.- The Star
Fine, young candidates for the picking -They
may be greenhorns in this general election but two winsome contenders
have caught our aunty’s interest with their winning ways.
BY
now, we know it’s a very crowded field of GE13 candidates. But in the
end, what really matters to me is who is vying for my vote in my kawasan.
So I checked the list and from the lot, two first-timers, both women, piqued my interest.
First off is Chew Hoong Ling, who is pitted against Tony Pua, the incumbent in the Petaling Jaya Utara parliamentary seat.
Chew
shot to fame when she donated part of her liver to a stranger, a
13-year-old girl suffering from liver cancer, four years ago.
Chew’s amazingly selfless act earned her much admiration. That much I knew about her but little else.
So when her candidacy in my constituency was announced, I decided to find out more.
I couldn’t quite remember what she looked like so I checked out her pictures online.
At 33, she is young and quite telegenic – important since the world is full of phone cameras.
According
to news reports, Chew was born in Kuala Lumpur and she holds a BSc
(Hons) degree in information systems from a UK university.
From her blog, I further learned she is a professional emcee and social entrepreneur.
She also describes herself as a property investor, author, radio deejay and former RTM1 presenter.
So
she has the gift of the gab, a talent an effective politician should
have. Not only that, she is fluent in English, Malay and Mandarin.
But what will she talk about? More importantly, will she talk sense?
Again,
I am encouraged by her range of interests that seems rooted in genuine
passion. Her support for organ donation, for example, started when she
was a teenager.
She is also interested in single mothers because she met such people while helping out at her mother’s reflexology centre.
She
wants to promote skills training for school leavers because she saw how
her cousins struggled to find work after they dropped out.
She also appears to be a good neighbour and serves as the secretary of the Section 21, Petaling Jaya Rukun Tetangga.
If
these are her causes, I will therefore expect her to speak
knowledgeably on them. I hope she will focus on what she believes are
important for us in her constituency and for the rest of the country. I
want to see if she can convince me she will fight for those beliefs in
Parliament.
What intrigues me is Chew is a BN candidate but she
also took part in Bersih 3.0 because she says she believes in free and
fair elections.
Do I detect a streak of independence in this feisty young woman? That would be something I appreciate in my MP.
Next is Yeo Bee Yin, the DAP candidate for the Kampung Tunku state assembly seat. She’s 30 and from Segamat, Johor.
This
young lady has impressive academic credentials. As she tells it in her
blog, after her secondary school education (SMJK Seg Hwa), she studied
Chemical Engineering in Universiti Teknologi Petronas under a Petronas
scholarship.
She topped her class, graduating with first class honours in 2006.
Yeo got a job with an international oil and gas company which sent her to work as a field engineer in Turkmenistan.
She made such good money that she was able to pay off her Petronas 10-year bond in just a few months.
But it was a six-month internship in Germany when she was still an undergraduate that started her political awakening.
“Before
coming to Germany, as a top student, I thought I knew a lot. After I
came here, I realised how little I knew about the world. I began to
question why in Malaysia … we (have not) been taught to think critically
and objectively,” she writes.
But, caught up with her
high-paying job, she says, “Life was great, I worked hard, played hard
... I became terribly self-centred”.
Then came March 8, 2008, and “when I opened The Star Online and saw the news on the political tsunami, I realised how I still loved and cared about my country.”
That was the moment she decided she wanted to contribute and not view her country as an outsider.
Still,
coming home had to wait as she had won a Gates Cambridge Scholarship to
do her Masters in Advanced Chemical Engineering at Cambridge University
– a life-long dream.
At 29, she returned home to take up politics, much to her mother’s dismay. And what does she want to achieve?
“I
hope that … Malaysia can be a land of opportunities and equality for
our children … a land where, no matter how big and what your dreams are,
they can be fulfilled here.”
She also says she is passionate about issues related to the environment and sustainability, young people, women and family.
So now I have before me two fine young women from opposing sides who are after my vote.
I
like that. I like the fact that there are strong, intelligent, highly
educated and motivated young people who are entering politics because
they are passionate about their country. I like it because with such
candidates, it means we voters have real choices to make this GE13.
So Aunty, So What? By JUNE H.L.WONG
It’s ceramah time! The writer plans to attend as many as possible with
her first-time voter daughters and hopes the weather will cooperate.
Feedback welcome: email junewong@thestar.com.my
China-Malaysia ties to remain on course amid surprise PM resignation
