Gripped by water issues

 

It's public knowledge that from day one of coming to power, the Selangor government, led by Mentri Besar Tan Sri Abdul Khalid Ibrahim, was bent on making life difficult for Syabas. Among other things, it refuses to approve the much-needed capital expenditure (capex) for Syabas to implement projects under the agreement and has stopped the company from imposing a tariff increase on water from January 2009 as provided under the agreement. 

Azman Ujang, The Sun 

I HAVE a confession to make. Since I started this column almost one and a half years ago, I have been obsessed with writing about Selangor's water politics. The issue threatens to hold the water security of the state, Kuala Lumpur and Putrajaya to ransom amid warnings of a critical water crisis by next year.This is my seventh column on water.

Although 2014 has been singled out by Syabas, the Selangor water services concessionaire, and the federal government as the year when the crisis would set in if the Selangor government continues to stall granting a development order for the Langat 2 treatment plant, I always believed that it would happen earlier.

I'm not an alarmist or a pessimist, just a realist because having lived in Selangor for the last 30 years, it's obvious that this is one state where the pace of development has been uncontrolled and unstoppable.

Added to this is the massive transformation of Kuala Lumpur and Putrajaya in terms of construction development and population increase, for which the most basic need is water.

Thousands of people from all over the country are settling down in the Klang Valley daily because this is where the hub of the economy is, providing jobs and business opportunities in a nation experiencing a population boom.

Malaysia has also become one of the world's top tourist destinations with Kuala Lumpur being the main gateway, thus adding even greater pressure on water demand.

The harsh realities of an earlier-than-anticipated water crisis were driven home with the onset of the New Year when some 500,000 people in 90 areas in Ampang, Cheras and Gombak had their taps running dry and had to make do with supply from Syabas tankers.

The disruptions were due to a drastic decline in the water pumping level at the Wangsa Maju pump-house by 30 million litres a day (MLD). It used to pump 210MLD but had to be scaled down to avoid damage due to over-pressure.

Now Syabas is working round the clock to instal bypass pipes, and supplies are due to be restored in two days if all goes well.

As of the weekend, Syabas had deployed nearly 2,900 tankers at great cost to deliver water to affected areas.

Well, this is just a harbinger, or even a preview, of what could be a bigger crisis if partisan politics is still the weapon or trump card used by Selangor in its game of brinkmanship with the federal government over a critical issue.

Dr Ahmad Zaharuddin Sani Ahmad Sabri, an academician and water expert, is disgusted with Selangor and Pakatan Rakyat politicians for putting the blame on Syabas for the crisis, while failing to carry out its responsibilities under the water concession agreement.

He has a point. Under the Selangor water concession agreement signed in 2004 that led to the privatisation of the state's water industry, river cleaning and water catchment areas, giving approval to operators of water treatment/supply for construction of new pump stations and the upgrading of plants and pump stations fall under the jurisdiction of the state government.

Ahmad Zaharuddin said the state government owned a 30% stake in Syabas and is represented on its board by two directors, Noorusa'adah Othman and Suhaimi Kamaralzaman, but the way it keeps blaming Syabas is as if it wants to conceal its stake or that the company has no link to the Selangor government.

"Why blame others? Why not discuss during a board of directors meeting what is wrong and what needs to be rectified," he told Bernama, while saying that he found it amusing that the state government even planned to sue Syabas for the water disruption. This is akin to suing itself, as it owns 30% of Syabas.

It's public knowledge that from day one of coming to power, the Selangor government, led by Mentri Besar Tan Sri Abdul Khalid Ibrahim, was bent on making life difficult for Syabas. Among other things, it refuses to approve the much-needed capital expenditure (capex) for Syabas to implement projects under the agreement and has stopped the company from imposing a tariff increase on water from January 2009 as provided under the agreement.

This non-approval for a tariff increase had led Syabas to file a legal suit two years ago against the state government for a compensation worth over RM1 billion.

All this is done because Khalid has come out with his plans to take over the state's water assets and restructure the water business, an issue he keeps harping on as the reason why he's stalling the development order for the Langat 2 plant, a federal government project to prevent a water crisis in the long term.

He is not only adamant about rejecting the construction of the new plant, but has dug deeper into his bag of water politics, when he said he would wait even for 100 years to implement the restructuring plan.

In another twist to the state government's water politics, Parti Keadilan Rakyat director of strategy Rafizi Ramli accused Syabas of making the people suffer in the hope of trying to topple the Selangor government.

Rafizi said he was even convinced that this was Umno's political game that "had received the consent of Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak".

Najib quickly rubbished Rafizi's allegation. He made it clear that the Barisan Nasional government does not play politics over water which is everyone's fundamental right.

"The opposition should not play politics when it involves the survival of the people," Najib said over the weekend.

He said the situation would be "disastrous" if the Langat 2 plant, now over 30 months behind schedule, was not built.

The federal government, however, is going ahead with building the plant and is ready to fight in court.

Tenders for the RM1.2 billion project were closed last month.

A highly placed legal source said that Selangor could only reject the application for the development order within the law. This means that political consideration won't stand in court.

In the meantime, to prevent dry taps crippling more areas in densely populated parts, I think Syabas needs to rationalise the flow of water based on its capacity to produce treated water and not based on the seemingly unlimited demands of consumers, especially households.

Given the constraints pending the Langat 2 plant coming into operation, would it not be more sensible to ration the flow if it's technically possible and if this is the reality?

According to news reports, tempers flared among consumers who had to wait in long queues for water tankers. Certainly, rationing enables consumers to store water for their needs in their homes during specified hours and is better than collecting from tankers.

As the prime minister said: "It is sad to see scenes of people carrying buckets of water in the affected areas, especially those who live in flats.

"Some have to carry the buckets up 10 floors. The young can manage, but what about the elderly?"

If Khalid and the state government are unmoved, Najib has offered the people of Selangor a way out.

"All these problems will be a thing of the past if Barisan Nasional is returned to power in Selangor," he said in Semenyih on Saturday.

With the general election expected within the next two months, and water being a matter of personal survival, Najib's pledge should be taken seriously to solve the water woes once and for all.

Azman Ujang is a former editor-in-chief of Bernama.