I refer to your report Power outage hits KL, southern states.

Why and how did this happen? While Tenaga Nasional Berhad sits pretty and claps its hands for an anticipated tariff increase soon, who is watching what they do? Why are they not doing business the old-fashioned way, that is to actually provide quality service and goods?

This is another irresponsible outfit on the loose, sucking up ratepayers' money and then wasting it on inefficiency and opulence.

Tenaga has been looking at various ways to increase efficiency and profits, especially with its new management team in town. I am also very impressed that TNB has commissioned a 20-year cash flow review to be undertaken by two outside consultants, one local and the other Australian.

Bravo I say. But others may ask what are Tenaga's chief financial officer and financial director there for in the first place?

Simple things like cancelling tea breaks, wearing uniforms and so on may improve the sen bit but not the ringgit bit. I would suggest the following for TNB to improve its bottom line and cash flow management, which in turn would stop it from harassing us with tariff increase month after month.

  1. The immediate release of all of its scholarship holders who have been absorbed into the company but do not have much work. In fact, its scholarship should have been limited only to the poor and bright students.

  2. The disposal all of the unnecessary buildings that it is occupying all over town and the centralising of its personnel in a few key buildings.

  3. The renegotiating of the one-sided contracts it signed with the independent power producers with a new clause being inserted for a longer contract period.

  4. The publishing of the identity of all its big debtors and the charging of these customers with interest for their outstanding amounts. The interest TNB should be equal to what TNB is paying for its borrowings.

  5. An immediate stop to all outsourcing work. TNB should undertake by itself to reduce expenditure.

I believe that if the above are implemented quickly, say within the next six months, they will easily save TNB millions of ringgit and it can go about happily again and leave us alone.

I will not send TNB a huge bill for the above suggestions unlike the army of consultants that it has on its payroll. Maybe this will stop the 'revenue greed' distraction and help them avoid blackouts in the future.