Pak Lah’s kin linked to power meter supply storm

PETALING JAYA, Dec 4 — The family of former Prime Minister Tun Abdullah Ahmad Badawi was linked today to a company that supplies the controversial digital electricity meters to Tenaga Nasional Berhad (TNB) alleged to have hiked up energy consumption bills and gained the national utility company billions of ringgit in profit.

According to PKR’s investment bureau chief Wong Chen, Noor Asiah Mahmood, who is the younger sister to Abdullah’s (picture) first wife, the late Tun Endon Mahmood, owns a 15 per cent share in Ombata-Ambak Holdings Sdn Bhd, which is one of five companies contracted by TNB to supply the new digital meters.

Wong alleged that the programme to switch analogue power meters for digital ones had showed consumers would be contributing RM6.88 billion to TNB’s profit over the course of 10 years. The programme has been stopped temporarily on the orders of Energy, Green Technology and Water Minister Datuk Seri Peter Chin Fah Kui since October.

“Our research shows TNB has 8.03 million consumers now and the average price for each meter is RM250, therefore this programme had the potential to reach RM2 billion.

“For the financial year 2012, TNB’s revenue from all consumers is RM34.4 billion, if the electronic meter had given a conservative raise of two per cent, the additional burden on consumers would be as much as RM688 million a year.

“Seeing as the life expectancy of this meter is only 10 years, consumers would ultimately have to pay as much as RM688 billion to TNB for that duration,” Wong told a news conference at the opposition party’s headquarters here.

PKR strategy director Nik Nazmi Nik Ahmad, who was also present, said the issue was not a small matter as consumers would have to pay up to 50 per cent of the cost of their power bills.

“Therefore, PKR urges TNB to be transparent and responsible in this matter to reveal who are the electronic meter suppliers, the price paid for the meters and whether it was competitively priced at local and international standards, and whether an open tender had been called or was it a direct negotiation?” Nik Nazmi asked.

The Seri Setia state lawmaker also called for TNB to fund an independent body to investigate consumer complaints on the new meters and to act on the findings that bind the utility company to consumers.

Last October, Chin said TNB had halted the replacement of analogue electricity meters with electronic meters until a standard operating procedure could be fixed.

He had made the decision after receiving public complaints saying power consumption had spiked after switching to the new digital meters, causing them to be also billed “retrospectively”.

“This operation will go on but our main task is to educate people on the new meter,” the minister had said then.

However, Chin had said replacing the analogue devices with the new meters would continue for households where the electricity meters were damaged or suspected to have been tampered with, resulting in losses.