KUALA LUMPUR (Nov 4): The Cabinet has approved a paper from the Ministry of Energy, Science, Technology, Environment and Climate Change (Mestecc) on the handing over of the ownership of Sabah Electricity Sdn Bhd (SESB) to the state government, the Dewan Rakyat was told today.

Mestecc minister Yeo Bee Yin said the Sabah government has completed its due diligence process in relation to the proposal.

“I discussed the matter with the Sabah Chief Minister (Datuk Seri Mohd Shafie Apdal) last week and he informed me that the state government had completed the due diligence process.

“I will attend another meeting with the chief minister to review the report for the due diligence on Nov 11 in Kota Kinabalu, and will be able to provide more details on the matter later,” she said.

Tenaga Nasional Bhd (TNB), which bought into SESB in 1998, currently owns 82.75% of the Sabah utility firm, with remainder shares held by the state government.

SESB has been recording losses for several years. It was reported in 2017 that this was due to the lower average tariff, compared with its generation cost.

At the time, SESB's current average tariff was 34.52 sen/kwh, while cost of energy generation was 56.50 sen/kwh.

The state government had at the time said that the tariff must be maintained or reduced, as 80% of the power generation involved was from natural gas obtained from within Sabah.

Yeo today also said that the Net Energy Metering (NEM) — a solar photovoltaic (PV) scheme to encourage renewable energy usage — would be implemented in Sabah next year.

"During a post-cabinet meeting recently, we decided to approve a 50 megawatt quota and RM13 million allocation for Sabah for the next 10 years. The funding would be sourced from the Electricity Supplies Industry Trust Account (AAIBE),” she added.