A RM2.196 billion project has fallen short of its aim to provide electricity to remote Sabah homes, with many households either not receiving power or supply going to empty houses.

A probe by the Auditor-General’s Department on eight out of 24 electricity grid lines in the rural electricity supply project (BELB) found its performance unsatisfactory.

BELB, which comprised 33 smaller projects, was an initiative by the Rural and Regional Development Ministry, the A-G said in its 2016 series 2 report released today.

It also included six hybrid solar projects and three transmission lines and was to provide reliable supply to homes out of service range of local authorities.

BELB was completed in late 2016 while the audit took place from March to June 2017.

However, the audit found that 33.8% of the 6,891 houses supposed to be connected to four grid lines either did not or were late in receiving their power supply, the AG said.

Meanwhile, about 60 houses which were either unoccupied or incomplete had power lines connected to them.

The project’s rollout was poor because of a shortage of skilled manpower at the ministry. – November 27, 2017.