Friday, June 18, 2010

PBAHB shareholders tackle director's record, water tariffs

GEORGE TOWN: Minority shareholders of state-owned PBA HOLDINGS BHD [] (PBAHB) raised a ruckus at the annual general meeting on Tuesday, June 15 over the re-appointment of Datuk Faiza Zulkifli as a director due to her poor attendance of board meetings.

A significant number of the shareholders objected to her re-appointment as she had only attended six out of 10 board meetings held for its financial year which ended Dec 31, 2009.

Faiza was appointed to the board on Aug 21 in her capacity as the state legal advisor.

After an appeal by Chief Minister Lim Guan Eng, who is also PBAHB's chairman, the motion to enable her re-appointment was finally allowed.

"I assured them that I will speak to the director concerned to express the views of the shareholders," Lim said.

The shareholders also proposed to raise water tariffs as PBAHB subsidises RM41 million a year for domestic water usage.

"As for the water tariff hike, we have decided that we will impose a water conservation surcharge for those using above 233 litres per day as Penangites used an average 286 litres of water per person per day, which is way above the recommended 165 litres per day by the United Nations," Lim said.

He added that PBAHB has forwarded its proposal for the surcharge to the federal government.

"We are still waiting for the nod, and so far, the feedback is favourable for the surcharge to be implemented.

"We hope to implement this as soon as we get the approval, hopefully this year," Lim said.

PBAHB reported a 10.3% increase in year-on-year revenue for the first quarter of 2010.

Lim said PBAHB posted an unaudited revenue of RM48.9 million for January to March 2010, as compared to RM44.3 million for the same period in 2009.

PBAHB recorded a profit after tax of RM5.4 million for the same period compared to RM3 million last year which Lim attributed to cost-cutting measures which resulted in a 31% drop in administrative costs.


No comments:

Post a Comment