SABAH Electricity Sdn Bhd (SESB) chairman Wilfred Madius Tangau today said the company could not raise or approve Sabah’s electricity tariffs.

The authority to decide on matters concerning electricity tariff lies with the Sabah cabinet on the recommendation of the Energy Commission of Sabah, he said after the assembly approved the Electricity Supply Bill 2024 today.

He said before this bill was approved, power tariffs in Sabah were decided by the federal government and enforced by the federal Energy Commission (ST).

“I see many are still confused over this matter, to the extent that various parties were venting their anger to SESB. Today’s Sabah assembly sitting showed many representatives also do not understand this matter.

“SESB is a utility company involved in the business of supplying electricity to consumers… SESB merely implements what has been approved based on what has been regulated and enforced,” he said in a statement.

Earlier, three bills related to the state government taking over the regulation of energy and electricity supply from the federal government were passed in a special assembly sitting.

The Energy Commission of Sabah (Amendment) Bill 2024, Sabah Renewable Energy Bill 2024 and Electricity Supply Bill 2024 were passed by majority vote.

Madius said SESB should not be blamed when ST, in a statement on December 26, said the power tariff adjustment in Sabah for January 1 to June 30 this year would be implemented under the Imbalance Cost Pass-Through (ICPT) mechanism.

“The ICPT tariff adjustment decision was beyond SESB’s jurisdiction,” he said.

ICPT refers to a mechanism under the Incentive-Based Regulation, which allows fuel costs to be adjusted every six months based on global fuel price fluctuations.

Under the latest ICPT implementation, domestic users with a monthly electricity consumption of 1,500kWh and below are not subject to any surcharge.

Domestic users with electricity consumption exceeding 1,500kWh will be subjected to a surcharge of 7.21 sen/kWh, the same as the surcharge for non-domestic consumers. – Bernama, January 3, 2024.