Sesco ordered to refund bill

The Star 12/10/2006

KUCHING: Businessman Chai Kun Seng paid RM9,045 in outstanding arrears to Syarikat Sesco Bhd to get power supply reconnected to a house he had bought in an auction, even though the bill was not incurred by him.

He paid the bill under protest as he had sold the house to a buyer and was obliged to get the power supply connected under the sale-and-purchase agreement.

Chai, who bought the house on Aug 9 last year, said he had checked with Sesco before the auction to find out whether there were any arrears in the electricity bill.

“I checked under the name of one Encik Basuki, who was the previous owner of the house, and Sesco said there was no outstanding amount and that his name was not in their computer system.

“However, when I went to apply for power to be reconnected to the house, Sesco informed me that there was an outstanding bill of RM9,045,” he told the Consumer Claims Tribunal here recently.

He then found out that power supply for the house was still registered under the name of its original owner, one NP Ting who had presumably run up the outstanding bill.

“There was no legal contract between Sesco and myself for that house, so why should I have to pay the outstanding amount for electricity which I did not consume?” he said, adding that the arrears covered a period of 15 months.

Tribunal president Rungit Singh said it was unfair of Sesco to charge a subsequent house owner for outstanding amounts incurred by the previous owner.

He also said Sesco should have a better monitoring system and implement a cut-off point of three months for consumers who failed to settle their bills.

“You cannot allow a bill to run for 15 months without being paid, then ask the subsequent owner to pay up,” he added.

He ordered Sesco to refund the RM9,045 to Chai.