Former energy, science, technology, environment and climate change minister Yeo Bee Yin said savings from the Kumpulan Wang Industri Elektrik (KWIE) fund and the Electricity Supplies Industry Trust Account (AAIBE) should be used to give the discounts, especially for the B40 and M40 groups and SMEs.

Yeo said with the country in another movement control order (MCO 3.0), schools only restarting at the earliest by September and the reopening of the economy by December, many will spend most of their time staying at home for work and education.

“One of the side effects of staying at home is higher electricity bills,” she said in a statement.

She said it was estimated that there would still be a sizeable fund in the KWIE due to the continued dip of global coal prices in the second half of 2020, the scheduled increase in piped gas price, global coal price recovery, potential incentive-based-regulation (IBR) cost savings, and only moderate imbalance cost pass-through (ICPT) rebate.

There was also a commitment from the independent power producers (IPPs) to pay their 10-year outstanding debt to AAIBE amounting to RM105.5 million by the end of 2020, which could be used to cushion tariff impact, she said.

“We are living in an extraordinary time. KWIE and AAIBE savings were made for rainy days such as this. While it is important to manage users’ expectations on tariffs based on fuel price, it is more important to help the general public to get through this very difficult time,” she said.

Yeo urged energy and natural resources minister Shamsul Anuar Nasarah to exhaust all options in leveraging the funds in KWIE and AAIBE and, if possible, with direct funds from the finance ministry to design a comprehensive Bantuan Prihatin Elektrik (BPE) 2.0 scheme.

This, she said, would help B40 and M40 families as well as struggling SMEs without giving a free ride (blanket rebate or discount) to industries that were making huge profits at the time of the pandemic such as the glove manufacturing industry.