By AR Rahman

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia: There was a time when a spike in your monthly electricity bill could be shrugged off as a seasonal anomaly—a particularly hot month, an overworked air conditioner, or a festive season hosting family. But over the course of last year and escalating into 2026, the numbers arriving on Malaysian doorsteps have transcended the realm of seasonal fluctuations. Across the nation, ordinary citizens are staring in sheer disbelief at utility bills that have mysteriously doubled or tripled. 

What we are witnessing is not a collective surge in national power consumption; it is the manifestation of an unmitigated, unaccountable monopoly run amok. Tenaga Nasional Berhad (TNB) has effectively abandoned its duty as a public utility provider, operating instead as a ruthless corporate machine that treats Malaysian households as a captive pool of revenue.

For decades, seasoned observers of Malaysia’s political economy noticed a predictable, frustrating rhythm to our energy pricing. Ahead of national budgets or key fiscal milestones, power bills would curiously bloat on a rotational basis. Certain postcodes—unjustly earmarked as affluent purely based on geographical lines—seemed to bear the brunt of these rolling spikes, artificially padding figures before settling back down. Penalizing citizens based on their address is inherently discriminatory, but today, even that subtle pretense of systematic manipulation has been dropped. 

The current regime of billing feels entirely arbitrary. When frustrated consumers lodge formal complaints with TNB regarding impossible bill surges, the utility giant’s remedy is as deceptive as it is defensive. Rather than honesty, TNB frequently "re-estimates" or reformulates historical statements, stretching or altering consumption data over several preceding months to magically justify the inflated current rate. This is no longer an isolated administrative hiccup; it is a systemic crisis, with the chorus of furious citizens growing larger by the day.

To make matters worse, TNB has systematically dismantled consumer oversight by aggressively phasing out printed, physical bills. While wrapped in the noble, corporate-friendly banner of "saving paper" and environmental sustainability, the true motive is far more insidious. Digital-only billing strips away the immediate, tangible reference point that allowed households—particularly the elderly and digitally disenfranchised—to closely track and detect unusual billing anomalies. It is a calculated move to reduce corporate transparency, making it increasingly difficult for ordinary people to challenge the mathematical gymnastics taking place behind closed applications.

Compounding this lack of transparency is a terrifying regression in customer relations. In recent months, TNB has begun deploying aggressive high-pressure tactics that belong in an illicit protection racket rather than a national utility company. Representatives are showing up on the doorsteps of everyday citizens without warning, demanding immediate liquidation of outstanding balances—regardless of how trivial the sum—under the immediate threat of disconnecting the power supply. The psychological toll of having a uniform-clad agent threaten to plunge a family home into darkness over a minor dispute is immense. It begs the question: is this how a premier Government-Linked Company (GLC) should conduct itself?

What makes this predatory behavior truly stomach-turning is the profound dishonesty and double standard at the heart of TNB's operations. While the company deploys gangster-style pressure tactics against ordinary citizens over negligible amounts, TNB itself has been entangled in the largest corporate tax dispute in Malaysian history, facing a staggering outstanding tax bill of over RM5 billion after the Federal Court ruled it had wrongly claimed massive manufacturing tax reliefs. The absolute audacity required to chase a struggling household for a double-digit bill while sitting on billions in unpaid state tax exposure exposes a deeply hypocritical corporate culture.

Instead of fixing its core compliance issues, TNB chooses to deploy the wealth it extracts from struggling households frivolously. The corporation spends millions on grandiose corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiatives, high-profile religious programs, and an array of non-energy-generating vanity projects that do absolutely nothing to improve grid efficiency or lower production costs. 

Simultaneously, the company continues to bleed tens of millions of ringgit in lost lawsuits brought forward by businesses over improper conduct, contract breaches, and structural negligence. TNB has no qualms about absorbing massive financial losses from corporate litigation or tax penalties, yet it maintains a zero-tolerance, iron-fisted policy against the single mother or the pensioner whose bill unexpectedly spiked beyond their means.

This toxic duality stems from a fundamental structural flaw: TNB is trying to walk an impossible tightrope, masquerading as a public-serving GLC while behaving like an aggressive, profit-maximizing private corporation. If a national utility company is to be privatized, it cannot retain a total, iron-clad monopoly over the country’s power grid. True privatization demands the introduction of open-market competition, giving Malaysian consumers the freedom to vote with their wallets and purchase electricity from multiple competing suppliers.

As long as TNB remains the only game in town, true corporate accountability will remain an illusion. The absolute best-case scenario for the Malaysian public is to strip away this toxic corporate facade entirely. The government must intervene to reverse this failed experiment, absorbing the utility back into a fully state-owned, not-for-profit institution. The primary mandate of an electricity grid must be to supply reliable, reasonably priced power to fuel the nation’s growth and sustain its people—not to exploit a captive population to serve a corporate bottom line. It is time to turn the lights out on TNB’s unchecked arrogance.

*AR Rahman is a former civil servant who observes national and regional affairs from his porch in Kuala Lumpur's historic Kampung Baru.*