SESB urged to reconsider payment plan by 1Borneo
KOTA KINABALU: Kota Kinabalu Chinese Chamber of Commerce and Industry (KKCCCI) president Datuk Michael Lui Yen Sang yesterday urged Sabah Electricity Sdn Bhd (SESB) to reconsider the proposed payment plan by 1Borneo Hypermall's tenants and owners on the electricity bill arrears.
The tenants and owners have proposed to make a payment of RM2 million, followed by the current electricity bill and RM100,000 of the arrears to SESB in order to keep the power supply in the mall running but their request was rejected.
The operators have requested for a three-month trial to carry out their proposed payment plan.
Instead, they claimed that SESB in its latest offer had requested an immediate payment of RM4.2 million, followed by another RM4.2 million in the next two months.
Several of the tenants and owners have sought Lui's assistance to resolve their predicament yesterday.
Lui said the tenants and owners' offer to pay the outstanding electricity bill reflected their sincerity in settling the arrears.
He said SESB should be open for negotiation rather than rejecting the operators' proposed payment plan outright.
“As a business entity, SESB should consider their request.
“This is the best the owners and tenants could do at this point in time.”
He said the relevant authority must look into this issue seriously as it involved over 1,000 tenants or operators who employed over 4,000 workers combined.
He said the power supply disconnection could possibly cause operators to close shop and workers to lose their jobs.
“We hope SESB could reconnect the power supply as soon as possible and be willing to renegotiate with the tenants.
“SESB should allow the operators to make monthly instalments for them to continue do business.”
Lui added that KKCCCI would write to SESB and set up a meeting with the utility company over the matter.
SESB disconnected power supply for air-conditioning at 1Borneo Hypermall on Wednesday morning due to over RM8 million in outstanding bill. The power supply has yet to be reconnected as of yesterday.
This is the second power supply disconnection made by SESB after the first on June 27 when the mall management failed to settle some RM9.3 million in arrears.
The management has since paid around RM700,000 leaving an outstanding balance of about RM8.6 million.
Lui said the mall management should also take responsibility by making public ways to resolve this issue, as well as to engage the tenants and owners in seeking a solution.
“We hope the shop owners, tenants, operators, hypermall management and SESB can negotiate and come to a consensus to solve this problem.”
Additionally, Lui stressed that it was high time for the government to step in in order to assist the owners and tenants in resolving this issue.
Meanwhile, Song Chii Peng, a representative of the owners and tenants, said SESB could not expect them to settle over RM9 million of arrears accumulated for the past two years in two days.
He said a liquidator had taken over the management company of 1Borneo Hypermall on March 1 last year when the mall developer Sagajuta was ordered to wind up.
At that time, the mall had owed RM2.9 million in outstanding electricity bills accumulated since August 2016.
Song said the mall incurred about RM700,000 in electricity bill every month, but the management was only able to pay RM350,000 to RM400,000 of the amount to SESB.
“This is because the management only managed to collect RM280,000 to RM300,000 in service fee, which caused the old and new electricity bills to grow up to RM9 million.”
He added that the operators bought reload or prepaid cards for electricity supply for their shops.
He said there were investors from China, England and Hong Kong who have invested several millions of ringgit to set up seafood restaurant and local gift and specialty shops in 1Borneo Hypermall.
Since the power supply disconnection, Song said three major tenants had pulled out from 1Borneo Hypermall.
He said the anchor tenant Parkson, which intended to renew its tenancy at the mall at the end of July, had also put its plan on hold.
Also present was KKCCCI secretary general Yee That Hian and executive secretary Tan Kar Seng.