KOTA KINABALU, Mon. (Feb 16, 2009) - The Sabah Progressive Party (SAPP) is stepping up its campaign on the State Government to abandon any plans of building coal-fired power plants in Sabah.

Its secretary-general, Datuk Richard Yong, is applying for a police permit to carry out a peaceful protest at the road leading to Wisma Innoprise at Likas in Kota Kinabalu where the chief Minister's department is located on Wednesday morning when the cabinet is scheduled to meet as reported in the newspaper on Sunday, to reiterate its objection to coal-fired power plants because of its potential hazards to the environment.

The chief minister said the cabinet meeting will discuss and identify the best way to generate enough power supply for east coast of Sabah.

"We urge the State Cabinet to cancel the proposed coal-fired plant in Sandakan as was done in the case of Lahad Datu last April.

"We are echoing the concerns of the people of East Coast of Sabah particularly those in Lahad Datu and Sandakan regarding the construction of coal-fired power plant in the State of Sabah.

"We are not letting up on this issue, which we consider an issue of immense public interest," he said. "We can no longer count on the words of our leaders. One good example is the fact that while the state government told us that the Seguntor plan has not been approved, we saw earth works taking place on site."

SAPP president, Datuk Yong Teck Lee, appeared in a peaceful protest at Seguntor, in Sandakan, last Friday to protest against a planned coal-fired power plant in the area. Tenaga Nasional Berhad, the national power company, is undertaking the project that will have a capacity of 300 megawatts.

Visiting Lahad Datu last Saturday, Chief Minister Datuk Musa Aman said there was an urgent need to build new power plants to satisfy increasing power demands in the east coast of Sabah.

Lahad Datu was the original site for the proposed coal-burning power plant. The State government bowed to public pressure and moved the project to Seguntor. The plant is said to be acquiring China technologies, and burn coal imported from Kalimanta, Indonesia.

Musa did not mention what feedstock the new east coast power plants will use, but SAPP had suggested that the State Government should use natural gas of which Sabah has abundant supply, and is cleaner and cheaper as a fuel than coal.

SAPP took exception of the fact that the national petroleum company, Petronas, has decided to build a 500-km long pipeline costing 3 billions ringgit to convey Sabah natural gas to Bintulu, in neighbouring Sarawak instead of considering downstream uses of the gas at the proposed petrochemical complex in Kimanis, about 50km from here.

SAPP also queried why Sabah people is made to pay for more expensive and polluting coal and diesel instead of natural gas which is cheaper and cleaner. Consumers in Sabah are made to pay for higher cost of electricity supply and suffer air pollution.