THE two sen per kilowatt (kWh) rebate for household electricity usage announced by Prime Minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin is not a discount and will not help much during the movement control order (MCO).
“The two sen/kWh rebate is based on the Imbalance Cost Pass-Through (ICPT) mechanism implemented by the previous Barisan Nasional Government, where electricity tariff will be adjusted every six months, based on the fuel prices at the time.
“In fact, the so called two sen/kWh rebate was already announced by Tenaga Nasional Bhd (TNB) back in Dec 23 last year,” said former Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak, in a Facebook post.
Yesterday, Prime Minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin announced a new stimulus package worth RM15 bil to help boost the economy, following the second MCO and the state of Emergency proclamation.
Under the new stimulus, called Perlindungan Ekonomi dan Rakyat Malaysia (Permai), Muhyiddin announced electricity rebates for domestic users, at a rate of 2 sen per kilowatt-hour, from Jan 1 to June 30.
Najib said that even during his administration, the Government gave a rebate of 1.80 sen/kWh from Jan until June 2018, despite having no pandemic, no lockdowns and the economy was doing good.
With that, Najib added, the Government was not really giving an electricity tariff rebate despite asking the public to stay at home most of the times.
“And I’m sure the electricity bill among the public will soar due to MCO 2.0. The longer we stay at home, the more electricity we consume.
“Therefore, it’s best if the Government announce a 30% discount on electricity tariff as long as MCO 2.0 is running,” he said.
For commercial use, Najib pointed out that the 10% discount for electricity usage between January and March, for six commercial sectors under Permai, was lower than what was announced by Interim Prime Minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad back in February last year.
“Back then, the interim premier announced a 15% discount for six months for the said sectors, as opposed to the 10% discount announced yesterday, which is only for three months,” the Pekan MP added. – Jan 19, 2021.
