When Will We Ever Learn?
The Damn Dam Returns A Third Time To Haunt Malaysia

This time, it is even clearer that the Bakun Dam project makes
neither economic nor environmental sense. Given the non-scaleable
nature of dams, one would be wasting the natural potential of
Bakun by building a 500MW dam.  Nor can one hope to scale it
up to 2400MW sometime later.
Why not just let it be for now, and build a big one when the
need and capability is really there?

If there still is supposed to be transmission to the Peninsula,
the cost of cabling would so outweigh the output of 500MW that
the per unit cost would be ridiculous. Even at the full 2400MW
design, Ekran wanted to charge some 17sen per unit, claiming
its costs to be higher than other
electricity producers. Hence, the cost per unit will skyrocket
as the cabling costs would remain the same, but the power transmitted
would drop to a fifth of what it was to have been.

Thankfully, the latest version does not seem to be for transmission
out of Sarawak. In which case, it would become a case of looking
for ways to use the output, rather than meeting a need. Hence,
while claiming a huge demand for electricity, the PM also talks
of attracting energy-intensive industries to Sarawak - and round
and round we go! Right now, Sarawak has spare capacity way above
its present and foreseeable future needs. Not so long ago, Deputy
CM George Chan revealed that Sarawak had excess
capacity and does not need any more power.  In any case, the
Seventh Malaysia Plan (7MP) puts Sarawak's excess capacity at
around 40%.

Sarawakians might wishfully hope that Sarawak will finally see
a tariff rate at the same level as the Peninsula's to encourage
greater power use.  Currently, Sarawakians pay about 50% more
compared to the Peninsula, supposedly to subsidise electricity
to remote rural locations. But the 500MW Bakun dam is not going
to reduce charges, but will actually raise costs.  Recent attempts
at low maintenance and low cost 50MW turbines that can run on
virtually anything, e.g. dung and other waste matter, would be
much  better for everyone - except those with the contracts to
build the dam.

So, what's the dam being built for -- to satisfy an ego that
cannot take no for an answer? Given Tenaga Nasional’s ratings
early this week, it should look at the numbers again, and insist
‘NO DEAL’. The only beneficiaries will be the construction companies
and those producing the raw materials, e.g. cement, steel, etc.
Does the real story lie there?

Jomo K. S.
 

NO MORE LIES:
MEDIA PROPAGANDISTS EXPOSED BY GOVERNMENT LEADERS

Recent admissions by Malaysian Government leaders have unwittingly
exposed misleading claims by their own propagandists. In May
1999, Prime Minister Mahathir admitted that the Malaysian economy
had contracted by -1.5% during the first quarter of 1999. And
despite the currency control measures, interest rates are lower
in neighbouring Singapore and Thailand than in Malaysia. Meanwhile,
inflation in Malaysia remains higher than in both countries
as well as South Korea. During the same period, the South Korean
economy grew by 4.6%, while even the Indonesian economy picked
up by 1.7%. Sadly, of the five crisis-hit economies, Malaysian
recovery may be the slowest. Instead, the propagandists point
to the KLCI recovery, conveniently
ignoring the even stronger recovery in the Jakarta Stock Exchange
- by 48% - since the beginning of 1999. There are many factors
behind this apparently anomalous situation - of
delayed economic recovery and a booming stock market - and the
propaganda may lull us into a fool’s paradise. Unfortunately,
although the nature of official denial has changed, the key economic
policymakers seem to be more concerned with winning elections,
saving cronies, public relations and the stock market than in
sustainable real economic recovery. Instead of uniting the nation
to overcome the ongoing economic crisis, leading government propagandists
continue to deceive Malaysians about the actual state of the
economy. Malaysians will soon have an opportunity to reject the
cronyism, corruption and other abuses which unchecked, long-term
incumbency has brought about in Malaysia as elsewhere. Unfortunately,
the ruling coalition’s financial, media and other electoral advantages
may prevent Malaysians from knowing their real options and exercising
real choice. While recovery in the rest of the region has involved
political change, our failure to change could well block the
new dispensation the economy desperately needs.

Jomo K. S.