Minister: Sabah power plant deemed suspended

Ruben Sario The Star 15 Nov 10;

KOTA KINABALU: The project to build a controversial 300MW coal-fired power plant, whose environmental impact assessment (EIA) report has been rejected, is deemed suspended unless there is an appeal.

State Tourism, Culture and Environment Minister Datuk Masidi Manjun said as far as he was aware, Tenaga Nasional Bhd (TNB), through its subsidiary Lahad Datu Energy Sdn Bhd, had not filed any appeal against the rejection of the detailed EIA for the project.

"My assumption for now is that this is the end of the story," he said after opening a home furnishing outlet here yesterday.

Masidi said there was thus no need for the state government to state its stand on the project as demanded by environmental groups.

He said it was now up to TNB to decide if it would appeal against the Department of Environment's (DOE) rejection of the EIA report.

The DOE had rejected the detailed EIA last August, stating that many of the project's environmental parameters had been ignored.

Asked if the project could be considered "history" in the absence of any specific allocation for it under the Budget 2010 recently tabled in Parliament, Masidi said it was actually a private initiative to be jointly undertaken by TNB with several other companies.

Lahad Datu Energy project manager Ahmad Farid Yahya said it was studying the DOE's reasons for rejecting the EIA report, adding that the department had allowed the company to resubmit the EIA.

Sabah Environmental Protection Association president Wong Tack had said earlier this week the state should reject the coal plant "once and for all".

He pointed out that Sabah was producing as much as 30 million tonnes of palm oil waste yearly, which could be used as a more sustainable way of generating alternative energy.