SANDAKAN: Member of Parliament for Sandakan, Vivian Wong, urged the Energy Commission of Sabah (ECoS) to act and enforce regulations according to Sabah’s current ground situation instead of copying blindly from the previous Suruhanjaya Tenaga’s (ST) standard.
Vivian, who is also DAP Sabah Secretary, made the above call after attending a briefing by ECoS Director of East Coast Territory, Norice @ Mohd Nazrie Itom @ Marcus, in his office at Wisma Saban on Thursday.
She had earlier received several complaints from the general public who are currently operating generator sets at their business premises or residences about the excessive frequency of inspection reporting required every month by the ECoS. For example, in addition to the annual generator set license renewal, anyone who is operating a generator set with a capacity of not more than 600V will need to engage a certified competent electrician to inspect and submit a report to ECoS once a month. If the capacity of the generator set exceeds 11000V, the owner will need to submit the inspection report four times a month. Each inspection report could cost between RM400 to RM500 per generator.
“I believe such a requirement is rather nonsensical, in view that most of the generator sets installed by the private sector here are mainly on standby, catering only to emergency use during power outage. Such requirements to submit multiple reports every month would most likely end up as mere paper exercise that resulted in added costs to the people,” said Vivian.
“I am fully aware of the need to ensure a safe operating environment for any generator sets installed. But instead of calling for submission of inspection reports multiple times a month, the ECoS enforcement team should conduct frequent random checks on those who are operating generators, and issue heavy fines to those who are not complying with the requirement,” suggested Vivian.
“The ECoS is ‘wholly owned’ by the State Government since 3 Jan 2024 and as such, it should be carrying out its duty and responsibility according to the ground situation in Sabah, instead of just blindly copying every set of rules and regulations from its predecessor. Afterall, is it not the objective to replace ST with ECoS in the first place so that we Sabahans can decide what is best for our people?” – James Leong
