KUALA LUMPUR, March 9 — The government is allocating RM10.76 billion to cover electricity bill subsidies for domestic consumers and non-domestic consumers in the low voltage (LV) category for the period from January 1 to June 30, 2023 (H1 2023).
Natural Resources, Environment and Climate Change Minster, Nik Nazmi Nik Ahmad said this covers users from Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (PMKS), restaurants, retail stores, small workshops as well as users in the agricultural category such as farmers, breeders and smallholders.
“This means that 9.5 million electricity users who represent 99 per cent of all users in Peninsular Malaysia will not be affected by the increase in fuel costs for electricity generation,” he said when winding up debate on the Supply Bill 2023 in the Dewan Rakyat, today.
Earlier Nik Nazmi said the electricity tariff is reviewed every six months through the Imbalance Cost Pass-Through (ICPT) mechanism taking into account fuel costs and other generation costs for the past six months.
He said in this matter, the cost of ICPT for the period from July to December 2022 was RM16.16 billion, equivalent to a surcharge rate of 27 sen/kWh which should be imposed on all users for the period from January to June 2023.
However, he said the government has agreed to only pass on a surcharge of 20 sen/kWh to industrial and commercial users (High Voltage — HV and Medium Voltage — MV) for the period from January 1 to June 30, 2023 and the remaining surcharge of 7 sen/kWh equivalent to RM1.93 billion would be accommodated by the government.
“If the government wants to maintain the surcharge of 3.7 sen/kWh to industrial and commercial users of MV and HV, an additional cost of RM4.2 billion will have to be borne by the government in the form of subsidies for the same period,” he said. — Bernama
