(Kuching, 21st) Sarawak DAP Chairman and State Assemblyman Chong Chieng Jen urged the Sarawak Electricity Supply Corporation (Sesco) to provide a reasonable explanation and account to the people of Sarawak for today's major power outage in Kuching, Sibu, Bintulu, and Miri, and not just settle it with a few words of apology.
In a statement today, Chong Chieng Jen pointed out that the major power outage lasting up to three hours in Sarawak's four major cities is a very serious incident as it involves a statewide power outage.
“As the sole and monopolistic electricity supplier in Sarawak, Sesco cannot just apologize without giving an account to the people of Sarawak about the cause and truth of this statewide power outage.”
Chong Chieng Jen was puzzled that, despite the Sarawak government constantly boasting its vision to become the energy hub of Southeast Asia, a statewide major power outage occurred, which is completely unacceptable. It further exposes the inadequacy of Sarawak's power reserves, as well as the serious lack of alternative power supply mechanisms and emergency power outage plans.
“In fact, recent power outage incidents in Sarawak seem to be becoming more frequent. Previously, outages only happened in local areas, but this time it was a statewide power outage. Could this be because Sesco or Sarawak Energy Berhad is exporting too much electricity externally (such as selling electricity abroad), leading to an overload of the existing power supply within the state? Or is it because of an overemphasis on developing hydrogen energy technology, neglecting other power generation methods (such as hydropower, coal power, or natural gas power generation), thus causing an imbalance in the overall power supply system? These are issues that the people of Sarawak are extremely concerned about and feel puzzled and worried about, and hope to get a clear account and answer.”
In view of this, Chong Chieng Jen urged the government to thoroughly investigate this statewide power outage incident, publicly announce the investigation results, and ensure that similar incidents will not recur.