Temptations & Ambitions

I refer to the article “TNB has to pay IPP for excess power” on 12^th Dec 2008 with a pinch of utmost disbelief. It is not a disaster in horror but seem more of a ploy to increase its tariff on consumers again. TNB mush have lack a team of economists as their financial advisor to have lash out such a statement. While the extra electricity was a failure of management and a bad business move, the cost cannot be transferred to the consumers, just in view of the short term loss. Every Tom Dick and Harry would have known that the price is determined by consumer’s demand, not due to excessive supply.

If TNB is incapable of managing its resources, I suggest that they keep it to themselves or lower the tariff to encourage a higher consumption, although it is not the best move for the efforts done for conservation of energy. Perhaps, one would not be able to see that if TNB had their way now by increasing the tariff, they will be laughing their way to the bank in 2011-2012 as their capacity had been reached. Would they have the hearts to lower the tariff by then? I doubt so, as they will be claiming that inflation and higher cost of living will render it an unfeasible move.

Do not forget that the recent increase of tariff has been a burden to the consumers. While they use the increase in petrol fuel as a reason for increase in tariff, they were not able to lower the tariff when global fuel prices lowered. The reason cited was that there is no correlation between fuel and electricity at all. Do they hope that such a statement had gone unnoticed?

Now, I’d hope that the monopoly of TNB should be abolished and let there be at least some healthy competition. We do not want to have an “inefficient” company managing our resources. The best example would be Malaysia Airlines which had been able to be competitive ever since AirAsia has entered into the fray. Wouldn’t that be a good idea?

By the way, here's the same article published in the Opinion section in The STAR.