THE Government must reverse electricity tariffs hike on businesses immediately to help address the six immediate concerns of businesses that may adversely impact their company’s profitability and survival as well as the 2022 economic performance to pull the country out of the current recession.
Despite greater business activity during the Chinese New Year period, the primary concern is surprisingly a shortage of workers to cater to the heightened demand, said DAP secretary-general Lim Guan Eng.
“The inability to source workers has forced some businesses to ‘rest’ during this normally busy and lucrative period,” he explained.
The second concern is inflation and rising prices of not just food but also basic commodities, Lim said, adding that the imposition of higher electricity tariffs on businesses through a surcharge and withdrawal of rebates is not helped by a weakening ringgit that increases the prices of imports.
As such, more than 1.6 million commercial and industrial users will be paying up to nearly 20% more for electricity from Feb 1, leading to increased prices for their goods and services.
“Why should consumers pay more just to shore up the profitability of one single company, namely Tenaga Nasional Bhd (TNB)?” he asked.
Prior to this new tariff hike, Tenaga had recorded a 9.6% and 4.6 % increase in revenue and earnings respectively for the nine months ended Sept 30, 2021.
“Isn’t that sufficient when many companies are barely surviving? TNB should not be overly protected at the expense of millions of struggling businesses still emerging from the COVID-19 pandemic.”
Other concerns that the Bagan MP spoke about include government red-tape, inefficiency and serial policy flip-flops and U-turns that caused confusion as well as the country’s growing corruption as exemplified by the drop in Transparency International’s 2021 Corruption Perception Index (CPI) to the 62nd position from the 51st position in 2019.
“Another concern is the incompetence and failure of the Government to harness the high-tech benefits of automation, artificial intelligence, Internet of Things (IoT) and also 5G to quickly keep Malaysia up to speed and not be left behind by countries like Vietnam and Thailand,” Lim remarked.
The final sixth concern, meanwhile, is the Government’s failure to respond to their own promise to consider an extension of the bank loan moratorium and interest waiver by another six months.
“This move is to help businesses emerging from the COVID-19 pandemic and economic recession to survive and thrive,” Lim said.
“Surprisingly concerns for the COVID-19 pandemic have receded, provided the Government keeps its promises not to re-impose the disastrous serial total lockdowns that has proven to be unsuccessful in eliminating COVID-19 and failed the economy completely causing the country to spiral downwards to a painful recession.
“Will the Government act or continue to sleep on their jobs by focusing on their political survival more than the people’s interests?” – Feb 4, 2022
