KUALA LUMPUR, Feb 10 — Industries Unite, a coalition of 120 Malaysian small-and-medium enterprises (SME) associations, institutions and trade bodies, has urged the government to halt the implementation of the 18 per cent electricity tariffs hike for all non-domestic users with immediate effect.
“We urge to the government not to enforce this unprecedented hike in electricity as it will fuel and set the train of inflation further as currently even without.
“To add on, it is almost inevitable that the consequences of this enforcement will be to pass the burden to the consumer,” it said in a statement today.
It said the government should instead publish a gradual hike of five per cent annually in 2022, 2023 and 2024 and publicise an implementation timeline of this tariff increase.
The coalition said the government should also set up an industry task force together with the industry stakeholders to be concerned about business continuity and growth for the Malaysian industry.
Additionally, it said the government needed to share legislative measures or alternatives for the industry to explore cost and energy savings together with subsidy measures so that it would not burden the economic market at large.
On January 28, the Energy Commission (EC) announced an imbalance cost pass-through (ICPT) surcharge of 3.7 sen per kilowatt-hour for non-domestic consumers such as industrial and commercial for the period of February 2022 to June 2022.
— Bernama
