When Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad has said that public-listed Tenaga Nasional Berhad (TNB) would take up a major stake in the (on-off-on) RM9 billion Bakun Hydro-Electric Dam project in Sarawak, the power giant's stock reacted badly with a RM1.10 decline in a single day.

That is not the end of the story which is perhaps the more significant part of it all - the TNB chairman had to issue a clarification saying TNB would only take "a small stake" in Bakun.

Never mind the contradictions between the Prime Minister and the chairman whom he appointed to the post. But how is the episode read or seen both in and outside Sarawak by the project critics?

"Spending RM9 billion on a hydro-electric dam when you don't even know where all that power is going to, is certainly not a very wise thing to do," reasoned a local analyst. It showed as much in TNB investors, who unloaded at the Prime Minister's announcement.

Indeed, the view from this side of the South China Sea is that if the main aim is to bring about greater socio-economic benefits to the 10,000 residents living in and around the Bakun area, surely there are other ways of spending such vast sums of money more wisely?

Such as building more standard roads into the interior, including the central Rajang area. Free housing for the scattered indigenous communities, giving them free water and electricity, building more schools and clinics and hospitals and give more scholarships to the children of the Orang Ulu.

Also the money could be better spent, said a local politician, on creating extensive agricultural schemes that will require direct labour input from the locals and help increase their income and its distribution in the hitherto lesser parts of the vast state.

Grave concern

When politicians and administrators in peninsular Malaysia cannot even see eye to eye on such important issues as the Bakun dam, it becomes a matter of grave concern to many ordinary Malaysians, especially when a substantial amount of public funds is to be committed for a project that no one is sure about its financial returns.

Therefore, the opposition cannot be faulted or blamed if they would not hesitate to capitalise on little incidents such as this failure to point out some of the irrational decisions concerning the implementation of some billion-ringgit projects.

Of course TNB's chairman Dr Jamaluddin Jarjis can be overruled, if it is the Prime Minister's wish that TNB , despite its present level of debt or loans, is to take up a major stake in Bakun.

Perhaps as a government-appointed man, he should have shut his trap, because the government could always provide TNB with a one-off grant to take the equity in the company that is going to develop Bakun.

Dr Jamaluddin is right of course, TNB is counted upon to help with Bakun because of its experience in hydro-dam projects in peninsular Malaysia and possibly also in other parts of the world.

Desirable aspect

The question of funding the project can be treated as a separate issue and need not necessarily further burden TNB.

On the contrary, according to some analysts here, TNB can profit in more ways than one not only in equity ownership but also in the implementation and management of the Bakun HEP. It cannot only look at the more desirable aspect of the project by taking over the overland transmission and distribution.

Under recent amendments to the Sarawak Electricity Ordinance, the Sarawak Electricity Supply Corporation (Sesco) is now also vested with the rests over transmission and distribution. And this means that power leaving the Bakun plant will have to be turned over to Sesco and not TNB.

Perhaps TNB should clarify this with the Sarawak government which is also keen to have a stake in Bakun which is seen essential to meet the state's long-term power needs in order to attract major industries in order to balance the growth in economic development between peninsular Malaysia and Sarawak and Sabah.

TONY THIEN is a freelance writer based in Kuching.