Gov’t extends electricity bill discount to Dec 31 for all domestic users

The government has decided to extend the discount period for electricity bills of domestic users across the country for a further three months to Dec 31.

According to Energy and Natural Resources Minister Shamsul Anuar Nasarah (above), this is an extension of the discount previously announced under the Prihatin economic stimulus package in March and the Bantuan Prihatin Elektrik (BPE) in June.

Prihatin and BPE were announced to offset costs, including high electricity bills, during the movement control order (MCO) period which began in mid-March due to the coronavirus pandemic.

Shamsul said the latest decision meant that "up to 7.66 million domestic users in Peninsular Malaysia will continue to enjoy discounted electricity bills between two percent and 50 percent from Oct 1 to Dec 31 as an extension of the discount announced by the prime minister on March 27 under Prihatin."

“The extension also applies for electricity consumers with usage between 601 and 900kWj, who began receiving a 10 percent discount under the BPE announced by the government in June.

“Domestic consumers in Sabah and Sarawak will continue to receive discounted electricity bills of up to two percent until Dec 31, which will benefit around 520,000 users in Sabah and 580,000 in Sarawak,” he said in a statement.

The minister added that the extended discount, estimated at RM392 million for the peninsula would be funded by the Electricity Industry Fund (Kwie) while the estimated RM6 million discount allocation for East Malaysia would be borne by the Finance Ministry.

“This brings the total cost of the discounted electricity bills from April to December to RM2.62 billion,” he added.

Shamsul announced in June that domestic users in Peninsular Malaysia would enjoy free electricity from April to June if their consumption for those months were under 300kWh or RM77.

Households with higher consumption would receive a RM77 deduction from each month’s bill.

Meanwhile, it was announced yesterday electricity users will not have to pay a surcharge for their electricity from July until December after the Imbalance Cost Pass-Through (ICPT) surcharge was reduced from two sen/kWh to 0 sen/kWh.

However, the reduction will largely benefit commercial users as the ICPT surcharge, which is determined every six months, was already at zero for domestic consumers in the previous six-month period. - Mkini