The truth about power tariffs

KINIBIZ It is not often that Tiger defends a corporation but he believes in this event he must. An aspiring prime ministerial candidate such as Khairy Jamaluddin should really not nudge the truth out of focus and help incur undeserved wrath upon Tenaga Nasional Bhd. Let Tiger dig in and unravel the truth.

Ah, what people will do just to gain some political capital. Out in the real jungle, we Tigers don’t play games but in the corporate and political jungle, it’s a different matter altogether. You climb up by putting someone else down, at the expense of the uncommon commodity called truth.

Take Umno Youth chief Khairy Jamaluddin’s recent flaying of Tenaga Nasional Bhd (TNB)  for the increase in electricity tariffs by about 15 percent, barring those 70 percent of households who were exempted because their consumption was low.

“I am bound by the cabinet decision but, as (Umno) Youth chief, I felt the need to raise it (displeasure over the tariff hike). I also raised it in cabinet. We understand the part about rising cost of fuels but TNB’s profits are high,” he said.

He noted that TNB needed to do this to recover high costs of investments “but for me and the rakyat, this is not good enough”.

Predictably the report garnered wide press and would have helped to make Khairy, a youth and sports minister who aspires to become prime minister one day, gain a lot of publicity and paint him out to be a voice which champions the people. It is a populist move.

But a person of Khairy’s background and education - he is a graduate from Oxford University’s highly regarded politics, philosophy and economics programme and the son of a roving diplomat - really ought to know better than to blame TNB.

Go to KiniBiz for the complete article.

This article was written by P Gunasegaram.