SYABAS far behind in distribution of water

The Selangor water monitoring committee has found that Syarikat Bekalan Air Selangor (SYABAS) underperformed in distributing water to the public based on the output from 34 water treatment plants across the state.

According to state Menteri Besar Khalid Ibrahim, SYABAS’s distribution capacity at 4,371 million litres a day falls short by 436 million litres, as water treatment plants could produce 4,807 million litres a day.

“This shows SYABAS is under-performing in its operation,” he stressed.

Khalid warned that the situation could be worse once the Mitigation 1 project was completed in March 2013, which will increase water treatment plants’ output capacity to 5,139 million litres a day, which means another 332 million litres/daily added to SYABAS's burden.

The committee, formed last week and headed by state secretary Khusrin Munawi, also rubbished SYABAS’s claim of low water reserves ratio at two percent, saying the actual figure was 11 percent.

The Mitigation 1 project involves upgrading of three existing water treatment plants and construction of a new plant in Labu to increase the state’s water reserves ratio to 18 percent.

“This shows SYABAS has failed to fulfil its responsibility to supply treated water sufficiently to consumers as stipulated under the Privatisation Agreement 2004,” said Khalid.

Against the backdrop, Khalid said it strengthened the state’s resolve to take over SYABAS management to fix all weaknesses including a recommendation to sack the water concessionaire’s chairman and executive chairman.

Earlier, Khalid revealed that dismissing SYABAS chairman Rozali Ismail would save the concessionaire RM5.1 million in salaries.

On the Federal government’s decision to go ahead with the Langat 2 water treatment plant, Khalid reminded state agencies’ approval related to the project must be referred to him.

-Harakahdaily