SESB suing construction firm

Kota Kinabalu: Sabah Electricity Sdn Bhd (SESB) will be suing a construction company allegedly responsible for at least 78 instances of damage to underground power lines while carrying out excavation works to build flyovers in the city here over the past few years.

“This year alone, there were four cases with the latest on Saturday. This is happening repeatedly due to negligence and mistakes by the company,” SESB Senior General Manager (Asset Management) Norhizami Abu Hassan claimed in a statement Sunday.

He said SESB faced huge losses, apart from facing public grievances over power cuts.

“Such incidences are bad for the company’s image. SESB will not compromise and will take appropriate action against the construction company,” he said.

He said SESB had lodged a police report and forwarded the matter to relevant authorities for further legal action on the latest incident at Jalan Persekutuan, here, on Saturday (March 13) that left some 5,000 people without power for about 12 hours.

He said apart from the 78 cases of cable damage, another nine cases were still pending for legal action to be taken.

In the incident on Saturday, he said SESB’s underground cable was damaged, causing one of the suppliers and the UMS Main Inlet Substation (PMU) to crash about 9.30am before supply was fully restored at 10.50pm.