Power woes shouldn’t have been made public, says mall management

The 1Borneo Hypermall management claims the action by utility company SESB has tarnished the image of the mall and Sabah as a whole.

1Borneo Hypermall . (Facebook pic)

KOTA KINABALU: The management company of a shopping mall here has slammed utility company Sabah Electricity Sdn Bhd (SESB) for going to the media in its attempt to recover arrears owed to it.

Speaking to reporters, Global Group of Companies operations director KK Tham said he was shocked when he read SESB’s statement which was published in a newspaper yesterday.

In the statement, SESB warned that it was giving the 1Borneo Hypermall management three days until June 27 to settle its RM9.3 million arrears, accumulated over 10 years.

“When this news broke, I received numerous calls from the peninsula, from overseas, asking me about this.

“All these people are potential investors whom I have brought here and they are concerned that the mall will have power supply problems soon,” he said yesterday.

Tham said SESB’s action had tarnished the image of not only the mall but also Sabah as a whole.

As a result, he claimed, foreign investors who were once interested in Sabah were now shying away.

Tham asked why SESB, as a major utility company, had seen fit to give up to RM9 million in credit before scrambling to collect the debts instead of solving the problem earlier on.

He also criticised SESB for “using the media to collect its debts”.

He urged the company to reconsider its decision for the sake of the traders in the mall, which is the biggest in East Malaysia.

“What more, think about the feelings of Sabahans as a whole because this action will have a bad impression on the local economy,” he said.

He said he hoped SESB would meet with the mall management to solve the problem as soon as possible without involving the media.

He also pleaded with the utility company not to pull the plug yet as there were several events scheduled for this weekend, including the pre-opening of a shop which will be attended by nearly 200 delegates from overseas. -FMT