Grilled by MP, another broken Seda rule is exposed

The Sustainable Energy Development Authority (Seda) has been found to have broken its own regulation as stated in the online application form for the Feed-in Tariff (FiT) scheme.

This was revealed after Seda officers were grilled by DAP's Petaling Jaya Utara MP Tony Pua during the question-and-answer session at a public briefing on the FiT scheme by Seda this morning.

The breach of the regulation may have caused unfairness to applicants who had complied with the online application rules, Pua (right in photo) said.

He raised the issue when questioning the financial capability of the companies owned by Suzi Suliana, the daughter of the former chief secretary to the government Mohd Sidek Hassan, and her associates.

The 12 firms were given 32.4 percent or 45.9MW out of the quota set for solar energy under the FiT scheme

Pua pointed out that the application form clearly states that the FiT applicant's bank account statement must show a credit balance of at least 20 percent of the total capital cost of the renewable energy installation.

Therefore, he wanted to know whether Suzi's companies had the sufficient credit balance, which could amount to RM70 million for the installation of the 45.9MW solar plants.

However, the top Seda management, including chairperson Fong Chan Onn, chief executive officer Badriyah Abd Malek and chief operating officer Ali Askar Sher Mohamad (right), said the 20 percent capital may not necessarily be in the form of hard cash.

It could be in the form of capital held by the applicant's holding company or even land owned by the applicant, Ali Askar said.

When Pua maintained that Seda had gone against its own regulation for applicants, the trio could not rebut this.

They took note of Pua's view and said they would make improvements to the application process.

[More to follow]