Under fire for the recent 48-hour water disruption, Syabas clarifies that water cut was necessary for major maintenance works and that notices were given one week in advance.
PETALING JAYA: Syarikat Bekalan Air Selangor (Syabas) said it should not be blamed totally for the 48-hour water disruption that affected some one million residents in the Klang Valley since Wednesday morning.
Syabas corporate affairs executive director, Abdul Halem Mat Som, said full water supply resumed 8am today (Friday).
He said all the blame for the water disruption should not be on Syabas.
“Our good intentions have been gravely misunderstood and many had even distorted the truth of the matter,” he said when commenting on a statement by Selangor state executive councillor Elizabeth Wong on Wednesday.
Wong, the State Tourism, Consumer Affairs and Environment Committee chairman, said the water disruption was caused by Syabas’ failure to maintain its plants since 1997.
Said Abdul Halem: “Her statement is totally wrong.”
“Actually, the maintenance and upgrading work is done by SPLASH (Syarikat Pengeluar Air Selangor Sdn Bhd), the water treatment plant operator, and not us. We want to stress that.”
Abdul Halem said that Wong’s accusation that the water disruption was caused by Syabas’s failure to upgrade plants since 1997 was erroneous as the plants were under SPLASH as the operator.
Critical stage
“This is the thing people don’t understand. SPLASH owns the treatment plants and they are the ones who treat the water. We purchase it from them before we distribute it,” he said.
He added that SPLASH had this year requested several times to maintain the plant but Syabas had postponed it, hoping not to inconvenience the public.
Abdul Halem added that the water reserves were also at a “critical” stage at the time.
“However, we couldn’t keep postponing a necessary thing so we then permitted them to do this. If the maintenance was not done, then what if the valves break or some serious technical problems occur? Then we will have even less time to inform the public and we’d again be blamed,” he said.
Asked if a staggered process was possible, Abdul Halem said the idea was suggested but the type of maintenance could only be done with a total shutdown of the treatment plant.
He also refuted accusations that Syabas had given too short a notice.
“It’s totally unfair to say that we did not give notice earlier. As per our agreement, we must notify consumers on water disruption schedule seven days in advance and in this case, we did on the 15th till 17th,” he said.
Aside from announcements, Syabas had also publicised (the impending disruption) through paid advertisements on Malay, English, and Chinese media, including TV and radio.
Second reminder
Abdul Halem said community leaders, resident associations and consumer groups were also notified.
“We were only doing a second reminder, but then everyone started blaming us for telling them at the ‘last minute’,” he said.
Asked if notifications could be sent to addresses the next time, Abdul Halem said it was not possible when it is a large-scale disruption, but “for the usual small disruptions, we even go door to door to inform (the residents)”.
He said that the works have been completed ahead of schedule (Wednesday), adding that as of last night, water supply to most of the affected areas is back to normal.
“We have pumped in water and residents have already started to get water after midnight (Wednesday). And the water supply has returned in staggered stages,” he said, adding that water supply was only disrupted in several hilly or remote areas (as of last night).
“In fact, there were many residential areas which we have identified that did not have any disruptions at all as Syabas had taken preventive measures by channeling water from other sources while filling up other storage pools in the area,” he said.
Syabas announced the water cut affecting Kuala Lumpur as well as Gombak, Petaling and Hulu Selangor districts on Tuesday. It was to allow SPLASH to upgrade the water supply system as well as to maintain and clean up the Sungai Selangor phase 1 water treatment plant in Bukit Gadong, Ijok.
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