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July 12, 2012
KUALA LUMPUR, July 12 — The DAP’s Tony Pua today slammed the country’s renewable energy authority for awarding lucrative feed-in tariff (FiT) solar-power contracts to Petronas’ new chairman Tan Sri Mohd Sidek Hassan’s daughter, saying that her companies have “no capital” and “no track record”.
Pua and his PKR ally Nurul Izzah Anwar had on Tuesday noted that both Suzi Suliana Mohd Sidek and her husband, Todd Morath, held a controlling stake in 12 out of a total of 32 companies that had won the contracts amounting to 32.4 per cent of the nation’s energy quota fixed for between 1MW (megawatt) and 5MW.
Pua (picture) today blasted Sustainable Energy Development Authority (SEDA) chairman Tan Sri Fong Chan Onn for reportedly saying that “the selection was above board as it was done through an online system.”
He refuted Fong’s claim in The Staryesterday that all companies selected had fulfilled the technical and financial requirements.
“A random check on two companies — Synergy Must Sdn Bhd and Trinity Creations Sdn Bhd — showed that they had only RM100 in paid-up capital each,” said Pua.
He noted that all 12 companies controlled by Suzi Suliana and her business partners “were set up only a few weeks before the 2 December 2011 application deadline”, with at least eight of them only set up on November 11, 2011.
“How is it that these companies with no capital, no track record and in all likelihood no employees as at the point of time of application, met ‘all the necessary technical criteria as well as financial commitments’?” asked the DAP national publicity secretary.
Pua urged SEDA to “reopen the bidding process for the solar energy quota to ensure that all players are given fair treatment”, saying that unqualified bidders should be “knocked out from the qualification process”.
Pua and Nurul Izzah had pressed Fong and Energy, Water and Green Technology Minister Datuk Peter Chin to explain the award and lay to rest allegations of foul play and favouritism among industry players.
They had also highlighted records they said showed Suzi Suliana, her husband and two business partners were handed the “lion’s share” of the limited contract introduced last year to enable homeowners and industry players to feed electricity produced by solar panels onto the national power grid.
The two opposition MPs had pointed out that together, the four business partners control “45.9MW or 32.4 per cent of the total quota allocated to companies producing 1MW to 5MW, much larger than established companies of Cypark and Petronas Power” which were respectively given 9.2per cent and 7.1 per cent.
Sidek retired as the Chief Secretary to the Government last month and was immediately named Petronas chairman.
Malaysia aims to have over 3,000MW of green energy on the national grid by 2020 and the federal government introduced a new policy last December to develop more independent power producers (IPPs), including households, to provide it.
This is not the first time the federal opposition pact has questioned SEDA’s FiT quota mechanism to encourage long-term use of cleaner energy.
Last February, DAP secretary-general Lim Guan Eng said the system limiting energy producers to RM300 million on a first-come-first-served basis to each of the four renewable energy sources was not very efficient.
He pointed out that SEDA had invited the public, including households, and small-time IPPs who contributed up to 30MW, although it was limited to 5MW in solar PVs, to apply and book the amount of renewable energy intended for the national grid and suggested Malaysia learn from Germany.
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